When a Saudi religious policeman questioned a young couple walking together in an amusement park he got a painful surprise - when the woman suddenly attacked him.

The officer, from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, asked the pair to confirm their identities and relationship to one another.

Unmarried men and women are barred from mixing under Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic rules.

The young man immediately collapsed for reasons that have not been made clear, the Jerusalem Post reported.

But before the policeman could do anything else, the woman - believed to be in her mid-twenties - laid into him.

He was punched repeatedly about the head and upper torso during the attack in the eastern city of Hofuf Mubarraz.

The assault was so severe and sustained, the officer was eventually taken to hospital suffering from severe bruising.

Neither religious nor local police have commented on the incident, which was widely played out in the Saudi media.

If the woman is charged with assaulting the officer, she could face a lengthy prison term, or a lashing, or both.

But public opinion appears to have been firmly behind her.

'People are fed up with these religious police, and now they have to pay the price for the humiliation they put people through for years and years,' Saudi human rights activist Wajiha Al Huwaidar told the Media Line news agency.

'To see resistance from a woman means a lot... This is just the beginning and there will be more.'


Saudi's archaic laws mean that, in addition to being barred from socialising with men in public, Saudi woman are also banned from driving.

They cannot divorce, inherit, or gain custody of their children, and they must be chaperoned in public by a male relative at all times.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice - known locally as the Hai'a - are tasked with enforcing these laws.

But resistance to the draconian measures - fuelled and empowered by the internet - has been growing in recent months.

'There is some sort of change taking place,' Nadya Khalife, the Middle East women’s rights researcher for Human Rights Watch, told The Media Line.

'But it’s not quite clear what’s happening and it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight.'

[link to www.dailymail.co.uk]