Saudi woman strip-searched for having coffee with a man

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia's religious police detained and strip-searched a woman for sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop with a male work colleague, who is not a member of her family.

The 40-year-old financial consultant, named only as Yara, said she was arrested on Monday by members of the powerful Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. She was holding a business meeting with the man in a branch of Starbucks in Riyadh, in a section reserved for families as is the rule in Saudi Arabia where unrelated members of the opposite sex are segregated in public, she was quoted as saying by the Arab News.

Yara said she was taken to a Riyadh prison, strip-searched and forced to sign a confession to having been caught alone with a unrelated man — an illegal act in the kingdom, which enforces a strict Islamic moral code.

"I had no other choice," but to sign, said the married mother of three. "I was scared for my life... I was afraid that they would abuse me or do something to me."

News Source : Samachar