Red-bearded Muslim muppet ‘scares the hell’ out of Yemenis

Nutjob Sheikh Abdel-Majid al-Zindani wth his salt-and-chili-pepper whiskers – Photograph: Yahya Arhab/EPA

LIKE his hero, the narcissistic  “Prophet” Mohammed, Yemeni Sheikh Abdel-Majid al-Zindani  enjoys dyeing his beard with henna. (At least we think it’s henna, which is supposed to improve your virility, and not Garnier Fructis, which does bugger all to lift your libido.)

But the dagger-toting old goat appears to enjoy very little else.

According to a report in today’s Guardian, al-Zindani is the force behind Yemen’s “virtue committee”, a Saudi-style religious police force charged with enforcing austere standards of public morality in the country.

Zindani is every inch as deranged as he looks. He claims to have found a cure for Aids, and specialises in Koranic explanations for modern scientific discoveries.

His Al-Iman university in Sana’a is seen as a hotbed of religious extremism, and he is accused by the US and UN of financing terrorism.

Oh, and he once taught Osama bin Laden.

His ‘virtue committee” is said to be supported by 2,000 clerics, tribal leaders and other primitives who have yet to claw themselves out of the 7th century.

The Yemeni “purity police” are in the news because they recently blocked a visit to their country by Egyptian crooner Ehab Tawfiq.

A concert  the handsome heartthrob was due to give in Sana’a was postponed and then cancelled after a campaign by the “virtue committee”, which distributed posters and leaflets condemning the Egyptian for promoting “sedition, immorality and nudity”. Some say they even incited death threats and intimidation.

Ehab Tawfiq

Death threats and intimidation? Who would have thought the “Religion of Peace” would employ such tactics?

For many Yemenis, and for women in particular, this was another alarming sign of the growth of Salafi extremism – an unwelcome import from neighbouring Saudi Arabia where the “mutaween” religious police are part of the scenery.

Complained Nadia al-Sakkaf, the editor of the Yemen Times:

These people scare the hell out of me. Yemeni youth are frustrated and depressed. There’s nothing for them to do. And since when did we need to act against pop singers?

The first signs appeared a few months ago in the Red Sea port of Hodeida, where young men and women began to be accosted by bearded vigilantes demanding proof that couples were related. A hotel disco and bar were closed down and several Arab women dancers deported. Daoud al-Jeni, a self-styled “virtue activist”, described his mission as being to curb “obscenity and prostitution”.

Anti-vice teams, some armed with sticks, have also been operating in Aden, the former British colony in the south.

In mid-July the Authority for Promoting Virtue and Combating Vice — exactly the same name as used in Saudi Arabia for 80 years — was launched in Sana’a and quickly moved to pressure the authorities to raid and close down two Chinese restaurants that were allegedly being used for “immoral” purposes, including selling alcohol.

Warns Hurriya Mashour, the deputy head of the state-backed Womens National Committee:

This is a step backward for human rights in Yemen.