Riyadh: Saudi women’s group yesterday blamed the country’s religious police in the “honour” killing of two sisters shot dead by their own brother after they were arrested for mixing with unrelated men.

The Society for Defending Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia said the religious police had placed the sisters’ lives in danger when they arrested them and then placed them in a Riyadh women’s shelter.

The two women, identified as Reem, 21, and Nouf, 19, were murdered after they left the shelter on July 5. The brother shot them in the presence of their father who, according to newspaper reports, quickly forgave the son for defending the family’s honour.

But the society blamed the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or the religious police, for sparking the brother’s anger over his family’s honour by arresting the girls in the first place.

“The hands of the religious police, as well as the brother’s hands, are stained with the blood of these innocent young women,” the group said in a statement.

“These women have not committed any crime to be killed in a such brutal way.”

Under Saudi Arabia’s Shariah legal code, unrelated men and women are not allowed to mix together, and the religious police actively enforce the rules by patrolling areas frequented by young people.

“Arresting women for mingling with (unrelated males) should be stopped because it puts many Saudi women in danger and sometimes (costs) them their lives,” the statement said.

“This act has nothing to do with the religion of Islam or Saudi tradition.”

The women’s group called on the Saudi authorities to charge the brother with murder and also bring to justice members of the religious police involved in the two girls’ case.

women’s rights

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch (HRW), accused the Saudi government of not honouring a pledge to end a male guardianship system which curbs the freedom of women.

“Saudi officials continue to require women to obtain permission from male guardians to conduct their most basic affairs, like travelling or receiving medical care, despite government assertions that no such requirements exist,” HRW said in a statement.

The New York-based watchdog said in June that Saudi representatives at a UN Human Rights Council review in Geneva had committed to take steps to end the male guardianship rule, give women full legal identity, and ban gender discrimination.

“The Saudi government is saying one thing to the Human Rights Council in Geneva but doing another thing inside the kingdom,” said HRW Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson.

“It needs to stop requiring adult women to seek permission from men, not just pretend to stop it.”

HRW said Saudi daily Al Watan reported last week that doctors have confirmed that health ministry regulations still require a woman to obtain permission from her male guardian to undergo elective surgery.

It also said border guards at the causeway linking Saudi Arabia to Bahrain refused in June to allow renowned women’s rights activist Wajeha Al Huwaider to leave because she did not have her guardian’s permission.

In February, Saudi officials submitted their rights record to the scrutiny of the UN Human Rights Council for the first time, defending some of the religious concepts behind Saudi law but arguing that conditions were improving.