Human Rights in Saudi Arabia

At least this wasn't so stunning an outrage as in 2002.

RIYADH, 5 February 2008 — A Saudi mother of three, who works as a business partner and financial consultant for a reputable company in Jeddah, didn’t expect that a trip to the capital to open the company’s new branch office would have her thrown behind bars by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice....

Yara, who has been married for 27 years, said she spent several hours in the women’s section of Riyadh’s Malaz Prison, was strip-searched, ordered to sign a confession that she was in a state of “khulwa” (a state of seclusion with an unrelated man) and for hours prevented from contacting her husband in Jeddah.

Her crime? Having a cup of coffee with a colleague in a Starbucks.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue is the same group of thugs who in 2002 forced girls back into a burning school because the dared flee the fire without putting on their headscarfs and abayas.Fifteen girls died. The BBC has that story.

Thanks to Instapundit for the lead.