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Riyadh: Saudi Arabia's top cleric yesterday defended the country's powerful religious police in the face of increasing complaints of malpractice and brutality, warning that critics are spreading moral corruption.
The excesses of the religious police, known as the Commission for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice - including charges of torture and killing - have stirred a rare backlash in the kingdom. For the first time, court cases have been raised against members of the force, which has long been seen as above criticism as it enforces the kingdom's strict Islamic rules, including segregation of the sexes. "Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice is a great ritual which God has made one of the traits of the faithful," Shaikh Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah Bin Al Shaikh, the kingdom's mufti and highest religious authority, wrote in a message printed in several Saudi papers yesterday.
"Those who call for marginalising it do not mean good. It is corruption because they demand the nation to deviate from the path of God," he said. He called on "patience and endurance" among members of the force in the face of the criticism.
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