The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the Hai'a) pursued and stopped an ambulance in Omluj on Sunday because of “mixing of the sexes” and “khulwa” – being in the private company of an unrelated member of the opposite sex – on the part of the driver and two nurses who were seated in the front of the vehicle. The ambulance driver said he and the nurses were going about their official duties transporting a female victim of a car accident from a hospital in Madina to Al-Wajh, and during the return journey the Hai'a blocked his path. “The Hai'a chased the ambulance and forced it to stop,” said one eyewitness. “People gathered round as the driver and two nurses were made to get out and answer questions for more than an hour and a half before they were allowed to go on their way.” Muhammad Al-Zubaidi, spokesman for the Hai'a in the province of Tabuk, said that his staff had observed a breach of Ministry of Health regulations in that the two nurses were sitting with the driver in the front seat of the vehicle. “The ambulance was stopped at a petrol station in the Omluj region,” Al-Zubaidi said. “Advice was provided and the driver was asked to seat the nurses in the rear of the vehicle. After that, the incident was over and the ambulance continued on its way.”
