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Sheikh N Bake · Joined: 26 Apr 2007 Posts: 1307 Location: Dis ting of ours

...from BBC, March 15. No one here commented on this then, did they?

Saudi Arabia's religious police stopped schoolgirls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress, according to Saudi newspapers.
In a rare criticism of the kingdom's powerful "mutaween" police, the Saudi media has accused them of hindering attempts to save 15 girls who died in the fire on Monday.

About 800 pupils were inside the school in the holy city of Mecca when the tragedy occurred.

15 girls died in the blaze and more than 50 others were injured

According to the al-Eqtisadiah daily, firemen confronted police after they tried to keep the girls inside because they were not wearing the headscarves and abayas (black robes) required by the kingdom's strict interpretation of Islam.

One witness said he saw three policemen "beating young girls to prevent them from leaving the school because they were not wearing the abaya".

The Saudi Gazette quoted witnesses as saying that the police - known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice - had stopped men who tried to help the girls and warned "it is a sinful to approach them".

The father of one of the dead girls said that the school watchman even refused to open the gates to let the girls out.

"Lives could have been saved had they not been stopped by members of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice," the newspaper concluded.

Relatives' anger

Families of the victims have been incensed over the deaths.

Most of the victims were crushed in a stampede as they tried to flee the blaze.

Arab Strap · Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 246 Location: under your bed

This is old news.......happended at least 8 years ago not quite sure when though.......

Sheikh N Bake · Joined: 26 Apr 2007 Posts: 1307 Location: Dis ting of ours

You are right--I didn't see the 2002 dateline. It didn't occur to me that a seven-year-old article would be at the top of Reddit.

007 · Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2009 4:39 pm Post subject:

Well, the story is old, it happened in 2002.
This was an isolated incident and has nothing to do with correct way to treat Saudi school girls. These incidents happen all over the world, some die in blaze incident, others die in shooting incident, like it happened in the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Virginia, United States of America, where 32 people were massacred by a maniac called Cho(more maniac than the Mutaween of the Magic Kingdom). And this happened in the land of Uncle Sam, the land of Chinese dreams!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre

trapezius · Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:04 pm Post subject:

007 · Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:28 pm Post subject:

trapezius · Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:40 pm Post subject:

One more incident does not make it "all over the world". Then I suppose you will show me one more incident. Still not "all over the world".

And upon further reading, that incident is not similar at all. In the SA incident, the girls were actively prevented from leaving. In the one you posted, the gates were padlocked and the security guards apparently no where to be found. No one was at the gates preventing them from leaving, pushing them back in, and beating them when tried to escape. There was no one at the gates; the gates were locked.

Yes, the deaths were still avoidable, but it is not even a tenth as heinous as the SA case.

Sheikh N Bake · Joined: 26 Apr 2007 Posts: 1307 Location: Dis ting of ours

Yes, this is one of 007's most inane and childish replies, which isn't saying much. As usual, he misses the point completely.

First--I acknowledged that it was from 2002 and at first I missed that dateline. There is no need to repeat that.

Second, nowhere else in the world except Talibanland would they rather let little girls die in flames than disobey their precious religious superstition and hatred of women and girls

Third, in any other country, this would have prompted a major epiphany. It would have been a watershed for reform. Not here.

Fourth, I suggest the mature attitude is either to keep silent and let the adults talk, or admit the truth that something was wrong.

Neil McBeath · Joined: 01 Dec 2005 Posts: 277 Location: Saudi Arabia

There is another point to this.

About a week after the incident, the President of the Committee for Female Education complacently stated that he was anwerable only to the King and that, basically, his job was safe.

A week after that, he was unemployed. The Presidency was abolished, responsibility for female education was handed over to the Ministry of Education, and the curriculum was revised - cutting down the hours devoted to religion, and allocating the time saved to other subjects.

It wasn't much. It probably wasn't enough, but this incident was a turning point.

007

tillymd · Joined: 07 Apr 2009 Posts: 114

Guys-Instead of dissecting each others comments, why not use your brains to come up with a strategy to prevent this kind of incident from happening in the future. You are teachers, aren't you?

trapezius · Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 8:55 pm Post subject:

Yeah, government policies, esp. in monarchies, can be influenced by anybody, let alone by us just because we are teachers Rolling Eyes

tillymd · Joined: 07 Apr 2009 Posts: 114

Don't forget television and internet...Western culture is like a cancer, unstoppable.