New law limits powers of Saudi Arabia's religious police

Saudi Arabia's new law systemically regulates its religious police and institutes reforms.

Saudi Arabia has issued a new law in to regulate its religious police including a number of reforms that seek to confine the powers of its members.

The new law bans members of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice from arresting suspects or practicing any other form of law enforcement power on them.

The law says that committee members are not allowed to "stop people, put reservations on them, chase them, ask for their documents, verify their identities or follow them," according to the Saudi Press Agency .

It adds that committee members must instead file official reports to specialized authorities who have the power to pursue further action, such as the Saudi police and the country's official body for combating drugs.

Although the law did not make changes to the day-to-day responsibilities of committee members, such as banning the sale and consumption of alcohol and ensuring women are properly covered, it did make changes to the way members carry them out.

"In accordance with this regulation, the committee shall be concerned with carrying out the duty of promoting virtue and preventing vice in a gentle and kind way," states the sixth article of the new law.

The new law also constitutes various organizational reforms. These include adding more required qualifications for the acceptance of committee members and forming an advisory board to report violations by committee members and propose suitable actions for dealing with them.

Moreover, the law gives the committee's president more regulatory power to hold the members accountable for their violations. The new reforms come in response to a wave of criticisms aimed at the Saudi committee following a number of recent incidents in which members were accused of using excessive force on duty.

In February, a number of committee members were reportedly arrested for alleged assault on a young woman in Riyadh after a video of the incident surfaced on social media. While in 2013, four members were accused of causing a deadly car crash after they chased two men who had refused to turn their car radio down.

World-class skateboarders occupy Dubai's Atlantis waterpark

Skateboarders took advantage of this golden opportunity for an exclusive, never-to-be-repeated Red Bull skateboarding session titled "Waterpark Lockdown."

Every year, Aquaventure Waterpark at Dubai's Atlantis The Palm closes down for one day for maintenance, during which thousands of liters of water are drained from its massive water slides.

Three world-class skateboarders took advantage of this golden opportunity for an exclusive, never-to-be-repeated Red Bull skateboarding session titled "Waterpark Lockdown," on some very risky terrain.

Italian skateboarder Alex Sorgente, Argentinian skateboarder Milton Martinez and German skateboarder Jan Hoffmann occupied Atlantis' Zoomerango and Aquaconda, the largest water slide in the world.

The huge rides served as incredibly thrilling and equally dangerous skateboarding spots for the three pros, who had the chance to test their skills on "some of the world's biggest and most treacherous natural transitions, complete with seams, sprinklers, fallaways and any other number of heart-stoppers," according to Red Bull .

The three daredevils took on more than 150 meters of twists and turns on Zoomerango, as well its 14-meter wall, all from a height of 25 meters above The Palm island. They then moved on to the nine-meter wide pipes of the world's water slide champion.

Atlantis' Aquaventure is an award-winning 17-hectare waterpark. It is ranked the number one waterpark in the Middle East and Europe. In addition to the water slides, the waterpark consists of a variety of facilities such as the Tower of Poseidon, the Tower of Neptune, a massive beach and a number of river rides.