Law, control, fear - and some defiance : citizens and enforcers talk about the 'promotion of virtue and prevention of vice'

Rights and Freedoms “This report begins with a short background to the law and the ministry, including a brief look at a more recent law, promulgated in August 2025, that outlines new procedures and ways of implementation. The report then moves on to its main subject: how citizens, especially women, experience Amr bil-Maruf and how enforcers experience their work. We hear how fearful it has made many women and their families, acting to discourage them from leaving the house at all, or only rarely, or only with a man, but that the law has also inspired defiance. The report includes personal testimonies concerning Amr bil-Maruf punishments. It highlights the anomaly of vice and virtue enforcers being tasked with policing women when the law makes it illegal for unrelated men and women to interact – a contradiction that has opened a space up for abuse. It also explores geographical variations in how the state polices morality.”