May 21, 2013
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Description
The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice or HAIA is the Saudi Arabian government bureaucracy employing "religious police" or mutaween to enforce Sharia Law within that Islamic nation.
Its approximately 3,500 members, and many more volunteers, patrol the streets enforcing dress codes, strict separation of men and women, salah prayer by Muslims during prayer times, and other behavior it believes to be commanded by Islam. They are known for having full beards and for wearing their headscarves loose without an agal; they often wear a besht as well. Prior to the reforms of 2007 they were armed with thin wooden canes.
(via Freebase)
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