"The 5,000-odd agents of Saudi Arabia's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (commonly referred to as the Haya, or Commission) carry a heavy burden of responsibility. Not only must they do things such as make sure shops close for the five daily prayers, enforce modesty of attire and strict separation of the sexes in public, prevent sorcery, and round up bootleggers and drug dealers. They must also impose summary new bans, such as recent ones against trading in pet cats and dogs in the port city of Jeddah, and against barbers offering Western-style haircuts that “imitate unbelievers” in Medina, Islam's second holiest city. Lately, their lot has grown harder. A spate of public complaints about the religious police's excessive zeal, exacerbated by press reports of several citizens dying while in their custody, has put the commission on the defensive. At least one Saudi has dared, for the first time in the kingdom, to demand compensation in a civil suit against the Haya. She charges that agents accosted her and her daughter outside a shopping mall, accused them of being underdressed, dragged their driver from his seat and, while commandeering the car to drive the accused women to vice-squad headquarters for questioning, drove so recklessly that they crashed into a lamppost, injuring the passengers. On internet chat sites and even in newspaper columns, some writers have even suggested that the Commission be abolished." (thanks May)