During the last two decades of the last century, the mutawwa’ien, i. e. control squad, or religious police, or as their official designation goes: Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (an official committee charged with enforcing a strict Islamic moral code) have enjoyed a free rein to impose their own strict vision of Islamic morality on everybody and no one dared challenge their abuses and extremely narrow interpretation of Islam. Most Saudis, especially women, lived in virtual fear of them. But lately public views over the role of the squad in Saudi society are undergoing changes. In May 2006, the interior ministry issued a decree aimed at reining in the squad by requiring them to wear special uniforms (to separate trained hired professionals from zealous volunteers) and not to interrogate detainees, as they had previously done, but to hand them over to the regular police.

The heydays of the control squad are on the wane. Slowly but increasingly the irate Saudis are literally fighting back. Local newspapers reported that within the last two years, physical attacks by the public against the squad are on the rise. But even more telling, the abuses of the squad are being openly aired in local newspapers and on TV and radio shows.

A few years ago, no one in Saudi Arabia would have ever dared lodge a complaint, let alone file a lawsuit against the control squad. But the unthinkable did happen this year. The first legal case ever to be filed against the squad was lodged by a woman. Mr. Abdulrahman al-Lahim, the lawyer of the plaintiff said she is alleging that in 2004 she and her daughter were wrongfully arrested and falsely accused of violating the dress code prescribed for Saudi women. The two were apprehended by a member of the squad who pulled their Asian driver from the driver seat and commandeered the car himself driving it recklessly, intending to take them to the squad’s headquarters. He prevented the woman from using her mobile to contact her family or open the car door to get out of it. Passing through a deserted, dark neighborhood, the man started to mishandle the car and drive it at full speed. He ended up hitting a lamppost causing great damage to the car and injury to the women. He ran away leaving the car and the passengers who were in bad need of help. As a result, the mother who had a heart condition suffered " further health complications." The woman is seeking justice and compensation.

Mr. Lahim said a regular Islamic court rejected the case claiming that “the squad can question others but others cannot question them, since they are above reproach”. So, the case is being brought before a civil court commission called the Complaints Commission, which has powers to hear grievances against state officials. Mr. Lahim took up the case hoping that it would further the cause of justice and the protection of individual freedoms and human rights.

Another legal case is to be filed soon against the squad by the family of a man whom they shot to death in front of his family. The man was resisting them as they were trying to break in and enter his home, suspecting him of trafficking in liquor.

The case of the lady and her daughter was the topic of discussion by a new TV show entitled "More Than A Woman" which airs on LBC, a Lebanese TV channel. The show is conducted by a Saudi woman and directed mainly to the Saudi Public. The show focuses on the position of women in Saudi society and the various restrictions imposed on them, in an effort to promote a more liberal attitude and combat deeply ingrained social conservatism. Among other topics aired on this show is gender segregation, the absence of women in the Shura council, and the possibility of women entering the judiciary. The Kingdom's legal system does not allow Saudi women lawyers to defend and represent their clients or plead their cases in courts of law.

Women sport was another issue discussed in that show. Women are not allowed to engage in sports presumably because this is antireligious. But the fact is that there are private clubs where women do their physical exercises behind closed doors. The show also discussed the issue of women driving cars and it was pointed out that the same men who oppose women driving or mixing with men in the work place or traveling without being accompanied by their male guardians are the same men who allow their women to ride alone in their cars for long distances with their Asian drivers.

In recent years, Saudi women have started to adopt a more assertive and vocal public position regarding their lot. Female columnists in the local newspapers have recently raised their voices criticizing the countless restrictions imposed on women and denouncing TV and radio clerics who preach negative notions about women in their daily broadcasts. One preacher answered one viewer asking about the propriety of seeking the advice of his wife on certain matters by telling him that women are lacking in sanity and in religion, which disqualifies them from thinking rationally or morally. Another cleric advocates the beating of women from an early age so that they will grow up to be obedient and docile. He concluded by urging women not to raise their voice in public because a woman’s voice should not be heard by men; it is indecent.

Saudi women often travel across the Kingdom on business and, because of the Kingdom's strict rules against gender mixing, face difficult situations when checking in at hotels. A woman can travel only if she had been accompanied by a male immediate relative or had in her hand a signed and authorized letter with the approval of her male guardian. It was recently reported in the local newspapers that a Saudi woman traveled with her two daughters from Dammam to Riyadh for some pressing business. The three were forced to pay their taxi driver to allow them to spend the night in his taxi after hotels refused to allow them to check in because they did not have the proper letter signed by the woman’s husband who happened to be lying in a comma in a hospital. Another man died of a heart stroke because medics refused to enter the house because only his wife and daughters were with him in the house, with no healthy male to serve as a protecting guardian! This is how bizarre things could get.  Even more ludicrous is the cleric who recently suggested a way out for women to skirt the hurdle of gender mixing in the work place. His ingenious solution is for the woman to suckle the coworker from her milk so that, in accordance with Islamic law, he would be her milk son.

Saudi female students who were granted scholarships to study abroad face a real problem, since they cannot travel and stay abroad without a male guardian. To circumvent this obstacle, a new social trend emerged, that of ‘mesfaar marriage' i. e. travel marriage. Several female students got false marriages this way in order to be able to go study abroad, since they did not have any father or brother ready to accompany them and stay with them for such a long period.

To meet the growing market demand for women-only accommodation, the establishing of women-only hotels has become a growing trend across the Kingdom. Though some women express concern that the new phenomena may cause further entrenchment of gender segregation within society.

The control squad will most likely continue for years to roam the streets and make their usual rounds in public places, but one cannot fail notice some visible changes in the ways Saudis now live and think as their society pushes forward toward modernity. For example, Saudi women with uncovered faces are seen reading the news or presenting family shows on Saudi TV, which has taken some hesitant steps in the direction of lifting some of the restrictions on women. Saudi men and women are nowadays engaged in an increasingly frank and more open public debate over their future and about changes in values and life styles that are impinging on their society. An example of this is a Saudi FM radio talk show called mubaashir, i. e. “direct”. The show is backed by King Abdullah personally who sees in it a means to reach out to the people and gauge public opinion. The show host and his audience challenge and criticize some powerful figures in the state apparatus for their failures in serving the public and doing their jobs properly. Through this daring show, some of the greatest taboos are aired, such as extremism, corruption, poverty, inefficiency of the legal system, violence against women and children and lack of accountability by government officials and public servants.

Even more surprising and daring than all of this is the petition recently issued and signed by four members of the Constitutionalists Opposition block. The petition was addressed to King Abdullah demanding the prosecution of the Interior Minister who, according to the petition, is creating a "police state" and promoting a "culture of fear". The signatories accuse the Interior Ministry of human rights violations and listing a series of alleged abuses by the ministry. The four signatories of the petition were among 100 other signatories on a petition submitted to the king earlier this year calling for a constitutional monarchy and an elected parliament.

There is no doubt that social and political reforms are on the way. All that is needed to speed it up is the formation of consensus among various power bases on what constitutes religion and what constitutes tradition. These touchy issues were delicately tackled last November by a play entitled "A Moderate With No Moderation," which was shown on the theatre of one of Riyadh private colleges. On the opening night the actors were attacked by the ultrareligious fundamentalists, who forced the cancellation of the performance. But the night after that the show went on smoothly. The play is a portrayal of the predicament of Saudi society. This is depicted by a man standing center stage with two men pulling at his two long sleeves, one to the left (secularism) and one to the right (Islam) with his father disparately struggling to hold him steady.