The Human Rights Commission (HRC) has described a report on Saudi women as “inaccurate” and criticized the report's comments on the work of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Hai'a). Zaid Aal Hussein, Deputy Chairman of the HRC, said the report by Yakin Erturk, the Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, following a recent visit to the Kingdom was incorrect in its description of the Hai'a as being a “source of fear to women.” Aal Hussein, who heads a Saudi delegation at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, also denied allegations that the Kingdom's legislation did not cover rape cases and noted that Shariah law laid out punishments for rape. “The judicial system in the Kingdom has its own methods for investigating rape and sexual harassment cases,” Aal Hussein said. In reference to the report's comments on sexual exploitation and forced labor, Aal Hussein said that such practices were criminalized in the Kingdom and firmly dealt with by the Saudi system. Aal Hussein described the report as too generalized and based on individual cases which could occur in any society. “They cannot serve as rules for generalization,” he said. “The Kingdom makes every effort to strengthen and guard the principles of human rights and fully cooperates with all mechanisms of human rights with transparency and credibility,” Aal Hussein said. “The Kingdom is proceeding with its strengthening of the status of women in such a manner as to preserve dignity and privacy.”
