Abbas’ government tries to counter the influence of Hamas, not by trying to boost its ever-undeserved “moderate” credentials, but by demonstrating its zeal for Islamic law. Sharia Alert. By Dalia Nammari for the Associated Press:
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) – A new squad of morality police has begun detaining Palestinians who eat or drink in public during Ramadan in the West Bank, where the Islamic month of daytime fasting was always widely observed but never imposed.
The 12-member squad appears to be an attempt by President Mahmoud Abbas’ West Bank government to challenge the monopoly on religious righteousness claimed by the militant group Hamas, the rival ruler of Gaza.
The sudden deployment of Ramadan police was unexpected in Ramallah, the seat of Abbas’ government and the most cosmopolitan and well-to-do of the Palestinian cities. Ramadan squads have not been set up in other West Bank towns.
“If anybody violates respect for Ramadan in the street, we take their identity papers and hold them for investigation,” said Qendah, 27, whose officers wear red shoulder badges reading “morality police.”Watching observers arrive at one of the town’s main mosques one recent afternoon, vice squad Lt. Murad Qendah got a radio call telling him a suspect has been spotted in the street imbibing “karoub–”a local soft drink made from carob pods. He ordered his six-man squad to seize the man’s papers pending investigation. Police say violators are usually held for 24 hours.
Police spokesman Adnan al-Damari said police have arrested at least 50 alleged
public morality offenders in Ramallah since the start of Ramadan, but would not be going after people who break the fast in their own homes.
“The duty of the morality police is to preserve public manners in public places, and to preserve the feelings of the people who are fasting,” he said. “Violating the holiness of Ramadan is a violation of people’s freedom.”
[…]
Writer Hassan Dandees, 58, said the government was right to seek to uphold religious standards.
“This is not a violation of anybody’s freedom,” he said. “Ramadan has a holiness every person should respect.”
But Ruba el-Mimi, 21, said she opposes the police action.
“It interferes with the privacy of the individual. People are free to fast or not,” she said. “If somebody is not fasting, he’s not doing harm.”
In addition to booking smokers, snackers and carob juice drinkers, Qendah is also on the alert for young men whistling at girls or drivers playing their car stereos too loud.
Although the piety squad has government sanction, Cabinet minister Ashraf al-Ajrami, said he is uncomfomtable with the operation and the impression that the government
was trying to be more zealous than Hamas.
“We are studying this issue, and there’s a possibility we shall end it,” he said. “We don’t want to change the order of things and appear as if we are following in the footsteps of somebody or imitating somebody.”