Islamists Strengthen Grip Over North Mali
FOX NEWS: BAMAKO, Mali – In one town in northern Mali a man has been whipped for drinking alcohol. In another, pictures of unveiled women have been torn down. In a third, traditional music is no longer heard in the streets.

While government soldiers were fighting each other this week for control of the capital in Mali's southwest corner, Islamist fighters were asserting control over the Texas-sized northern half of the country. The Islamists, some of whom are foreigners, are imposing strict religious law, setting up a possible showdown with Tuareg nationalist rebels who say they want a secular state and who seized northern Mali in March alongside the Islamists.

In the fabled city of Timbuktu, whose winding alleyways lined with mud homes fill with sand blown in from the Sahara, pictures of unveiled women have either been torn down or covered over with black paint, according to El Hadj Baba Haidara, a member of the Malian parliament for the city. The Islamists have also cut the signal for national TV broadcasts to the city because they consider the women not properly covered and don't approve of the music the station plays, Haidara said.

"No one came come here and tell us how to practice Islam," Haidara said. "Timbuktu has been Islamic since the 12th century and we have our own way of doing things."

Down the road from one of Timbuktu's mosques, whose wooden doors are decorated with metal crescents and stars, Islamists have made their base at a bank. A sign at the entrance says "Islamic Police" in Arabic and French. Residents have been given a phone number to report serious crimes and other emergencies, but widescale patrols haven't been deployed to enforce Shariah, at least not yet. But punishments are being meted out.

On Monday in Gao, one of the three biggest cities in north Mali, two men caught smoking hashish were given 30 lashes in front of the police station, according to Hama Dada Toure, a teacher in Gao. One man who had allegedly beaten his pregnant wife was given 10 lashes and ordered to pay her.

Toure said a flexible tree branch is used in the whippings, the blows delivered with less than full force. The Islamists make the person being punished say "Allahu Akbar. La illah illa-Allah" — meaning "God is great. There is no God but God" — each time the branch strikes them. » | Associated Press | Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Another sharia story »

Taliban Enforcer Squads Accused of Ruthless Control in Nuristan

THE GUARDIAN: Isolated Afghan border area heavily regulated by shrouded 'vice and virtue police' said to surpass even hardline Taliban

Villagers in the more remote parts of Afghanistan's mountainous north-east region, tucked up against the lawless border with Pakistan, have long ago adjusted to living alongside insurgents.

But the Taliban enforcers who started filing into their mosques two months ago to check that beard and trouser lengths met standards of religious propriety, and to hunt for government employees, still chilled the congregations.

The Taliban were shrouded from head to toe in black, barely any flesh showing, some also wearing sunglasses. "At Friday prayers the uniformed unit comes and stands in the last line, and then waits at the gate of the mosque to ask people questions like 'why is your beard short?', 'do you work for the government or national police?'," said Haj Sayed Ahmad, a 51-year-old teacher who fled to Kabul a week ago to escape the fallout of a battle between the insurgents and government forces.

"They have black face masks, and even their feet and hands are covered. You can't see anything at all," he added of the men, who also set up checkpoints to search travellers on the roads of the district in the much contested province of Nuristan.

The Taliban spoke in accents from outside the area, refugees said, and anyone who questioned the enforcers risked a dangerous assault.

"The uniformed group, when they stop people, they don't say much. If you try to make a longer conversation they will give you a beating that will nearly kill you," said Hussain Ali, 30, a lawyer. "We call them the 'vice and virtue police'." » | Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul | Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Saudi Journalist and TV Host Nadin Al-Badir Calls the Saudi Religious Police the "Enemy of Society" and Says: Most of Them Are Ex-Cons Who are "Violently Extreme"

Haia Officers Get Training to Combat Black Magic
ARAB NEWS: JEDDAH: A total of 30 officials of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Haia) have been trained on how to deal with cases of black magic.

The three-day training program was held in the Eastern Province city of Al-Ahsa.

The commission has achieved remarkable successes in combating black magic in various parts of the country. It has set up nine specialized centers in the main cities to deal with black magicians. » | MD Humaidan | ARAB NEWS | Monday, April 04, 2011

In the Grip of Islam: On Virtue and Vice in the Yemen
Image courtesy of the BBC
BBC: A hairdryer whirrs. Teenage girls reach for sequins, glitter and hairpins. It's the weekend in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and seven sisters are dressing for a wedding.

The eldest, Ashwaq, 21, a university graduate, wants to be a journalist.

Asked what she thinks about Yemen's new self-appointed morality authority, she looks up from styling her sister's hair.

"The first thing they'll do is stop women from working. Then they'll force us to wear the veil."

Yemen is a conservative Islamic society, where parliament boasts only one woman out of 301 MPs.

The state is weak and the courts have limited reach. Instead, cultural practices - such as veiling and gender segregation - are enforced by neighbours, relatives and community leaders.

But on 15 July, a panel of Islamic clerics - supported by prominent tribal chiefs - announced the creation of a Meeting for Protecting Virtue and Fighting Vice.

The unofficial body will alert Yemen's police force to infringements of Islamic law and hold annual conferences to monitor progress.

"This new vice and virtue movement has the potential to undermine the government," says Rahma Hugaira, chair of Yemen's Media Women Forum.

"Civil society groups are working hard to modernise society, to establish a social contract grounded in our constitution and reflected in our laws. A group using religion as a weapon threatens all the progress we have achieved."

Vigilantes

The vice and virtue movement reportedly started in Hodeidah, where "morality guardians" began challenging women walking alone and driving without a chaperone.

Couples were asked to prove they were married or closely related. Similar reports began to emerge from Yemen's second city, Aden.

In June, security forces in Hodeidah arrested seven Christian missionaries. In Sanaa, a policemen accompanied by bearded vigilantes raided a Chinese massage parlour and a chain of restaurants. Yemen Divided on Vice and Virtue >>> By Ginny Hill, Sanaa | August 11, 2008

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