RIYADH (AFP) — A businesswoman was detained and strip-searched by Saudi Arabia's religious police for sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop with an unrelated man, taboo in the country, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The incident came just days after a UN report blasted the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom for widespread discrimination against women and as a UN expert on women's rights began a visit to the country.
It also came as a Saudi princess announced a scholarship to promote women in journalism, saying "women journalists are best placed to promote cultural communication between men and women in Saudi society."
The English-language Arab News quoted a 40-year-old financial consultant, named only as Yara, as saying she was arrested on Monday by members of the powerful Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
She said she was holding a business meeting with the man in a branch of Starbucks in Riyadh, in a section reserved for families. Saudi law requires that unrelated men and women be segregated in public.
Yara said she was taken to a Riyadh prison, strip-searched and forced to sign a confession to having been caught alone with a unrelated man -- an illegal act in the kingdom which enforces a strict Islamic moral code.
"I had no other choice" but to sign, said the married mother of three. "I was scared for my life ... I was afraid that they would abuse me or do something to me."
She said the religious police, known as the Muttawa, released her several hours later after her husband, Hatim, intervened.
"I look at this as if she had been kidnapped by thugs," said Hatim.
The paper said the man with whom Yara had coffee, an unnamed Syrian financial analyst, was also arrested and remains in custody.
Saudi Arabia's 5,000-strong religious police have recently been investigated over a number of deaths that occurred while they raided homes or kept people in custody.
A United Nations report released on Friday said women in Saudi Arabia are the victims of systematic and pervasive discrimination across all aspects of social life.
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women urged the government to take concrete steps to enforce gender equality and end violence against women.
Yara's arrest was reported as the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, Yakin Erturk, visited Saudi Arabia at the government's invitation.
Erturk will meet government officials, members of the appointed Shura (consultative) Council and academics during her visit, lasting until February 13.
She is also expected to meet individual victims of violence against women and subsequently report her findings to the UN Human Rights Council.
Mufleh al-Kahtani, vice president of the National Society for Human Rights, an independent rights watchdog sanctioned by the Saudi government, told AFP on Tuesday that Erturk had been briefed on efforts to improve women's conditions.
"We explained to her ... the progress that has occurred over the past few years in terms of giving women their rights and expounded on the conservative nature of Saudi society," Kahtani said of the Monday meeting.
He said the UN official showed "understanding" but argued that women should be granted more rights.
Kahtani said his group was following up on the Starbucks case.
Meanwhile, a Saudi princess said on Tuesday she was offering prizes and scholarships worth 270,000 dollars a year to boost female journalists.
The goal is "to encourage Saudi women to work in journalism and help them develop their professional skills through training and practice," Princess Hassa bint Salman told AFP.
In remarking on the role that female journalists could play in promoting cultural communication between men and women, she stipulated that this should be done in "a manner compatible with sharia (Islamic law) and moderate social norms."
Women in Saudi Arabia, which applies a rigorous doctrine of Islam known as Wahhabism, face a host of constraints, including a ban on driving. They are forced to cover from head to toe in public, and cannot mix with men other than relatives or travel without written permission from their male guardian.
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