RIYADH: They cruise the streets in huge Chevrolet Suburbans, watching for shops that don’t close for prayers, staking out cafes for possibly unmarried couples on illicit liaisons — known as “dates” in any other culture.

The religious police, Saudi Arabia’s front-line defenders of draconian Islamic controls on public behaviour, are now in reformers’ headlights.

But fear of their power and their backing by the hardline religious establishment is making the battle a difficult one.

The sacking and then apparent reinstatement this week of the most outspoken progressive in the Commission to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice underscored the tensions behind the battle.

The general manager of the muttawa in the holy city of Mecca, Sheikh Ahmed al-Ghamdi, was declared replaced Sunday in an order signed by the commission’s president, Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Humain, after having repeatedly declared his opposition to bans on gender mixing and requirements that Muslim men pray in groups, preferably in mosques.

“There is nothing in Islamic law about mixing,” Ghamdi had repeatedly said.

But that directly contradicted one of his key duties, to prevent fraternising between unrelated members of the sexes.

Hours later Humain’s order was cancelled with no explanation. Saudi media hinted that the reversal involved very high intervention from the country’s royal government.

It was a rare public tussle in the mostly behind-the-scenes battle over the harsh controls Saudi Arabia’s ultra-conservative Islamic clerics exert on life.

For Saudis given to modern global culture, the religious police are the bane of life. They prevent women from driving; require them to shroud their faces and bodies in all-black, shapeless abayas; block public entertainment; and force all commerce, from supermarkets to petrol stations, to come to a halt at prayer times, five times a day.

They are the reason that Saudis don’t have movie theatres, that unrelated men and women cannot work in the same office, and that young men fear their cell phones will be searched for “illicit” photos and messages from unrelated girls.

Last year the semi-autonomous Saudi National Human Rights Association suggested in a report they were out of control.

“The commission enjoys extensive power including catching, arresting, inspecting and investigating. These authorities are not clearly specified in the commission’s law and its regulation, and as a result there is a fear that their acts may violate the rights of individuals.”

But for many humble, simple Saudis, the commission is a godsend, more trusted than the regular police to prevent things like alcohol, prostitution, and magic and sorcery from eroding the foundations of Saudi Arabia’s fundamentalist Wahhabi brand of Islam.

Although they fall under the interior ministry, they operate with great autonomy, and maintain a close alliance with both the courts — where all the judges are Islamic clerics — and the powerful Grand Ulema, the supreme council of religious scholars who define the Islamic rules governing life.

Religious police spokesman Abdul Mohsen al-Ghaffari told AFP last year they hate the name “religious police” and prefer “Al-Hisbah,” those who hold people accountable to the laws of Islam.

“We are focusing on societal ills,” he said.

“The focus is to ensure that shariah law is practiced.”

A number of cases in recent years have outraged even Saudis and embarrassed the government. In 2002, they prevented firemen from entering an all-girls school that was ablaze, leading to the deaths of 14.

And the arrest a few years ago of an American businesswoman meeting a man in a Saudi Starbucks sparked a US complaint.

Such incidents are believed to have prompted King Abdullah to install Humain to reform the commission a year ago.

Humain hired consultants to restructure the organisation, met local human rights groups, and consulted professional image builders in a broad public relations campaign.

The commission also investigated and punished some out-of-control officers for misbehaviour.

It launched regular training sessions as well, including five-day courses on “skills to deal with witches and sorcerers” and the three-day “skills to deal with tourists.”

The organisation now must only undertake enforcement action together with police, and it has stopped using the untrained volunteers blamed for the worst incidents of the past, Ghaffari said.

Many people in Riyadh say they are harassed less than before for exposing their faces, wearing decorated abayas, or meeting with unrelated men in the family sections of restaurants.

Rights activist Fawziah al-Bakr said that the religious police were barely evident this year at the two major annual Riyadh public events, the Janadriyah fair and the international book fair.

“I hated to go to Janadriyah in the past because the muttawa hassle women all the time,” she said.

“And the only person who approached me at the book fair this year for not covering my face was another woman.”

Christoph Wilcke of Human Rights Watch says the group may have lightened up a bit but fundamental changes are still needed.

“They’ve been working on piecemeal reform. The big reform actually hasn’t happened,” including a new law under study which would define their mission and remove law enforcement powers.