The Saudi religious police issued a rare apology on Tuesday for the beating by its personnel of a British man residing in the kingdom in a supermarket in the capital Riyadh.
The Commission of the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice said it was re-assigning four of its staff to administrative duty after a video emerged over the weekend of the men in a confrontation with a foreign man.
The Briton, who has not been officially identified, was in a women-only checkout aisle at a supermarket in the conservative Sunni Muslim kingdom on Friday when the officers approached him, in a spat which devolved into an assault on the man and his Saudi wife.
"The commission apologises to the resident and his wife," the body said in a statement, saying the men overstepped their authority in accosting the couple and not contacting a superior.
Public mixing between the sexes is frowned upon in Saudi Arabia and Virtue and Vice personnel patrol public places to prevent it and other perceived violations of Islamic morality.
The Commission of the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice said it was re-assigning four of its staff to administrative duty after a video emerged over the weekend of the men in a confrontation with a foreign man.
The Briton, who has not been officially identified, was in a women-only checkout aisle at a supermarket in the conservative Sunni Muslim kingdom on Friday when the officers approached him, in a spat which devolved into an assault on the man and his Saudi wife.
"The commission apologises to the resident and his wife," the body said in a statement, saying the men overstepped their authority in accosting the couple and not contacting a superior.
Public mixing between the sexes is frowned upon in Saudi Arabia and Virtue and Vice personnel patrol public places to prevent it and other perceived violations of Islamic morality.
© Thomson Reuters 2014
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