The persons who launched a Facebook page called Committee to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice in Egypt announced their “total independence” from al-Nūr Party and the Salafī Da’wah (Call) due to “the shameful position of the party that denied any relationship with this page”.
They said that they will embark on administrative work to establish the Committee as of January 1, 2012 and will later start actual activities a month later.
The organizers of this page announced vacancies for the job of mutawa’ for a starting salary of LE500 (roughly $90) per month.
[Reviewer’s Note: The word mutawa’ (singular) or mutawa’īn (plural) most literally means "volunteers" in Arabic and is commonly used as a casual term for the government-authorized or government-recognized religious police (or clerical police) of Saudi Arabia. The mutawa’īn in Saudi Arabia are tasked with enforcing the sharī’ah as defined by the government, specifically by the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV). The mutawa’īn of the CPVPV consists of "more than 3,500 officers in addition to thousands of volunteers...often accompanied by a police escort." They have the power to arrest unrelated males and females caught socializing, anyone engaged in homosexual behavior or prostitution; to enforce Islamic dress codes, and store closures during the prayer time. They enforce Muslim dietary laws, prohibit the consumption or sale of alcoholic beverages and pork, and seize banned consumer products and media regarded as anti-Islamic (such as CDs/DVDs of various Western musical groups, television shows and film which has insults on the Islamic law or Islam itself). Additionally, they actively prevent the practice or proselytizing of other religions within Saudi Arabia, where they are banned].
The persons who launched the Facebook page announced they resignation from al-Nūr Party due to “the shameful position adopted by the party leaders and higher board after we had joined the party upon promises that this committee will be established after coordination with the government institutions concerned in the fashion of what happened in the holy lands [Reviewer’s Note: Saudi Arabia]”. [Mustafá Hāshim, Al-Shurūq al-Jadīd, P. 3, Dec. 30] Read original text in Arabic
