Talk:Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (Saudi Arabia)

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Comments[edit]

This type of organization also exists in Iraq http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=91517 and Afghanistan http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-239/0805023171092733.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.117.81.67 (talk) 22:51, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]


—Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.201.185.85 (talk) 23:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thia is absolutely false. Members do not beat people-regularly. It is very rare for them to do so. The article is very biased and screams of Western Anti-Muslim prejudice.

The best way for you to change this is to prove it incorrect. --Brasswatchman 02:56, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No , he can change it now if it's unsourced . Ammar (Talk - Don't Talk) 19:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Removed false information and unprovable allegations[edit]

I removed the following two phrases:

"The group is widely feared in Saudi Arabia"

and

"Those who refuse to obey their orders are often beaten and sometimes put in jail. "

Not only are they completely baseless, but they're obvious weasel words.

I've lived and worked in Saudi Arabia (still working here actually) and those two claims need some solid proof if they should be included. I've personally run into the Committee members (shortened as Hai'ah by Saudis) and even talked to some of them. They're not the monsters this article tries to portrays them as. Awaiting proof for those two allegations.--SlightlyInsane 15:30, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I suppose you could read all the links and references in the article. I mean, if it's not too much trouble....--Mike18xx 19:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have. And read tons more. And I have had face-to-face dialogs with the members of the Committee. And with their critics, which includes people who were arrested by them. But that's not the point here. The main issue is this, "Does the article present fair and accurate information or not?" That is the most important thing, regardless of what any of us thinks. Opinions are irrelevant on encyclopedias. --SlightlyInsane 17:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]


SlightlyInsane, if you're still in Saudi Arabia, why don't you walk up to some random women on a public street and conduct an opinion poll for us? I'm sure they won't be afraid to talk to you. Make sure the nice Hai'ah see you. If they tell you to leave those women alone, refuse to obey and then let us know what happens. There's nothing to fear after all.
Two points to make here: 1. Arabian/Islamic women are modest and aloof, whether the Committee members are there or not, so if I were to do that, I'd get into trouble with her Mahram (brother/father/husband/etc.) 2. Suppose I do that. What's next? I come here and talk about it? Wikipedia is not a place where users tell anecdotes and personal experiences. If they beat me up or invite me to some coffee, how can I prove that to the readers of Wikipedia? No one has proof of what happened to me. Again, that is the whole point here: accuracy. And accuracy has no solid connection to stories told on the internet by anonymous people. --SlightlyInsane 17:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've lived in Saudi for many decades and I can assure you the Mutawwa are almost universally feared and disliked by Saudis and expatriate alike. SlightlyInsane has an agenda I think. However the Mutawwa are a tiny vocal fraction. Most Saudis are very nice people. They've had a bad rap in world opinion due to the action sof a tiny minority.Anjouli 07:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My "agenda" is accuracy. Weasel words and personal opinions do not belong to an encyclopedia. From your experience, you found that Saudis and non-Saudis alike fear and dislike the committee members. My experience is almost the exact opposite. What now? Again, personal experiences and opinions mean nothing on an encyclopedia. If there should ever be a poll conducted among people living in Saudi Arabia, and it has utmost transparency and rock-solid proof of its veracity and accuracy, then that is something that can be included in Wikipedia. What Anjouli and SlightlyInsane think about the Committee (aka Hai'ah) is irrelevant. That is the whole point I'm making here.--SlightlyInsane 17:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

SlightlyInsane, your last comment is somewhat transparently disingenuous at best, since you must be quite aware of the fact that the Saudi regime does not allow polls of that nature to be conducted -- so that the "evidence" you're demanding simply won't exist until and unless there's a rather major change in the Saudi regime or its policies. If Wikipedia had existed in 1989, I don't think we would have been forbidden from mentioning that there was discontent with Ceaucescu and his rule until the actual moment that the Romanian revolution broke out. I'm sure that some of the religious enforcement police are moderately pleasant individuals if you get to know them personally (something which most of them would never allow any non-Muslim to do of course), but that doesn't change the fact that they're part of a repressive system which is perceived by many to often result in injustices, and is passionately hated by at least some, and is conspicuously divergent from international human-rights norms as embodied in international human-rights treaty documents. AnonMoos 09:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested removal of entire sub-section[edit]

Under "External Links", an entire sub-section headed with the sub-section title "News items" deserves to be removed. The sub-section contains links to (and in one case, a whole excerpt) articles, columns and opinion pieces. Wikipedia is not a newspaper nor is it an endorsement of any religious or anti-religious points of view. The policies on the Neutral Point Of View are some of the most (if not the most) important policies of Wikipedia. Reasons for deletion suggestion are as follows:

  • Five links point to the site Arab News. Four of those are opinion pieces. Only one of them is a news story but it is neither cited to back a point in the article nor is it a particularly informative source on it.
  • One link points to Little Green Footballs, a site that is not only well known as an extremist right-wing website but even has that fact advertised in their own mission statement, in which they state that they are not interested in representing all sides. This goes against Wikipedia's policy on Neutral Point of View. In addition to that, the site is a blog (i.e. a self-published source). By Wikipedia's standards, blogs (and self-published sources in general) are largely unacceptable sources.
  • One link points to the site Asia News, a self-professed religious website. Furthermore, the story itself contains weasel words and unsubstantiated allegations.
  • One link points to the Toronto Sun, a populist conservative tabloid with a documented history of sensationalism.

The 3 links under "External Links" (BBC, Amnesty International and the official site of the article's subject) are acceptable by Wikipedia's standards.

Please ensure you have read and understood Wikipedia's policies and guidelines before editing any Wikipedia article. First thing to read and implement is Wikipedia's Five Pillars.--SlightlyInsane 19:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

neutrality issues[edit]

there are a number of concerns regarding the neutrality of this article (as well as Mutaween). some of the language used here is unduly emotive and opinionated ("... have developed some notoriety for suppressing ...", "One of the most extreme examples of mutaween enforcement of Sharia law...", "...members enjoyed almost total power to arrest, detain, and interrogate..."). that's only the most overt passages, there are others with more implicit bias. one or two of the sources also aren't exactly the most appropriate, such as "asianews.it", a missionary website. ITAQALLAH 19:04, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am adding text from the mutaween article and from a book on bin Laden and will endevour to make sure my language is NPOV and text is sourced. --BoogaLouie 19:14, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

some of your changes have been very productive. what do you think about using asianews.it as a source? any chance of finding a better quality source? ITAQALLAH 17:23, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So long as the article continues to reference AsiaNews (a Christian site), it will hardly be credible. --SlightlyInsane 11:58, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why is text written by Christians necessarily less reliable than your personal memories of your personal discussions with Saudi religious policemen (which would seem to be anecdotal WP:OR)? AnonMoos 12:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Needs history[edit]

This article is kind of unencyclopedic in that it contains no history except a few recent news incidents. When was this agency created? Did it have any predecessors in earlier Saudi governments? -68.91.148.162 (talk) 18:14, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Bin Laden[edit]

@103.246.39.46, TheTimesAreChanging, and JPxG:. My concern is the addition of the content by 103.246.39.46 that stated One of the Taliban supporters, Bin Laden, was also from Saudi Arabia. and providing a source where the source stated that bin Laden is indeed from Saudi Arabia and have participated in Taliban activities. However, I think that inclusion of Biden Laden is WP:UNDUE as he have no business at all with the Committee. Their practice may be similar, but they do not have clear connection, and should not be on the article. I think that bin Laden should not be included on the article. Thoughts? SunDawntalk 08:39, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's on the section about similar groups that exist elsewhere, and what influences they may have drawn from this organization; the fact that he was from Saudi Arabia and was also a big-shot Taliban guy (if I understand correctly) seems relevant here, although I'll admit to not knowing much about the geopolitical situation in question. jp×g 08:59, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes you are right, JP. He was a big shot guy right from the start. About the geopolitical situation, well, Saudi Arabia and other countries helped Afghan Taliban fight the Russian/Soviet troops in the old days. Later, Afghanistan gave him shelter. The Taliban shared the same ideology.103.246.39.46 (talk) 03:15, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Then I propose this edit, Outside Saudi Arabia, in Iran, the Guidance Patrol functions as the country's main public religious police, imposing Islamic dress codes and norms in most public places.The Taliban regime that is once led by bin Laden,or Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, also had a "Ministry of the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice" with a very similar religious policing function. The Taliban are thought to have borrowed the Saudi policing policy not only because they also had a strict Sharia law policy, but because of alleged financial and diplomatic support from Saudi Arabia. According to a Pakistani journalist who spent much time among the Taliban, the Taliban who had been to Saudi Arabia before taking power in Afghanistan "were terribly impressed by the religious police and tried to copy that system to the letter". This will include bin Laden as the leader of Taliban, but also didn't make the sentence out of place by mentioning him specially. Thoughts? SunDawntalk 03:24, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Taliban's religious police was indeed largely modeled on the Saudi Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice; however, bin Laden was not part of the inner circle of either the Taliban regime or the Saudi monarchy at the time. Casually mentioning that bin Laden, a notorious terrorist, was born in Saudi Arabia in every article related to Saudi Arabia might be true, but it is also a random, off-topic shout-out and WP:SYNTH absent a RS that clearly connects it to the topic of the article. Describing bin Laden as a Taliban leader would be factually incorrect.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:30, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sundawn, your edit is good. But just say that he was a senior leader. He was not "the" leader. 103.246.39.46 (talk) 03:49, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Bin Laden was not a senior Taliban leader.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 14:32, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes he was a senior leader but not the top leader.103.246.39.46 (talk) 05:11, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Source???TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 08:01, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Based on the source I think it is clear that Bin Laden is at least the "top leader" of Al-Qaeda, like on this source. SunDawntalk 14:40, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Al–Qaeda and the Taliban are completely separate organizations...TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:39, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
They are separate organisations now, but back then, not quite.103.246.39.46 (talk) 05:34, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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