Saudi Arabia: Religious police block girls' rescue from fire

Off Our Backs, May/Jun 2002 by Douglas, Carol Anne, Heart, Debony, Ruby, Jennie, Mantilla, Karla

MECCA-On March 11, fourteen girls at the 31st Girls Middle School in Mecca were allowed to die in a fire because they weren't wearing long dresses and veils. The religious police prohibited male firefighters from saving them because they were not dressed in the Islamic way for girls and women appearing outdoors. Most of the girls who died fell from windows, were suffocated, or were trampled to death. Hundreds of other girls escaped the burning building.

Government newspapers have criticized the religious police for blocking the girls' rescue. The director of the religious police, Sheik Jaber Hakmi, denies the allegations.

Saudi Arabia is an ally of the United States. ( It's so much better than the Taliban.)

-info from The Washington Post, 3/18