Posted on 03/14/2002 4:41:08 PM PST by dighton
SAUDI Arabia's religious police are reported to have forced schoolgirls back into a blazing building because they were not wearing Islamic headscarves and black robes.
Saudi newspapers said scuffles broke out between firemen and members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice who tried to keep the girls inside a burning school in Mecca.
Fifteen girls were killed as they stampeded to escape from the blazing building in the Muslim holy city. Saudi media and families of the victims have been angry over the deaths of the girls in the fire that gutted the school.
The resulting public criticism of the religious police, or mutaween, is highly unusual.
The English-language Saudi Gazette, in a front-page report yesterday quoted witnesses as saying that members of the religious police stopped men who tried to help the girls escape from the building, saying: "It is sinful to approach them."
A civil defence officer told an Arabic-language newspaper, al-Eqtisadiah, that he saw three members of the religious police "beating young girls to prevent them from leaving the school because they were not wearing the abaya".
He added: "We told them that the situation was very critical and did not allow for such behaviour. But they shouted at us and refused to move away from the gates."
The father of one of the dead girls alleged that the school watchman refused to open the gate 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 Saudi Gazette said.
The much-feared mutaween roam the streets of the conservative kingdom wielding sticks to enforce dress codes and sex segregation and to ensure that Islamic prayers are performed on time.
Those who refuse to obey the orders of the religious police are usually beaten and sometimes jailed.
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2002.
They will probably say something like, since these girls were virgins, they will be honored by becoming companions for the "heroic suicide martyrs" who died killing infidels.
Since I believe that God has spoken through the Bible and I further believe that what He said ought to be followed, I would be called a fundamentalist.
Well said. Well said, indeed.
Thanks. I needed to be reassured.
I feel much better now.
Muttering to self: "Islam: religion of peace. Islam: religion of peace. Islam: religion of . . . ."
Thanks for the word of confirmation. (Why am I not surprised?)
No, that's not the American way. At least not nowadays
Let's make them obsolete!
I don't read Arabic so can only rely on what is available in English, such as the posted article from the Arab News.
I'll check with some people in Arabia and see what's being said there.
I would like to hear how this is being reported in the region. I did not see an account in the Bahrain Tribune.
Bush has a covenant of peace with Islam and the House of Saud. We are betrayed.
From Mark 5:
He said to him, "My name is Legion, for we are many."
He begged him much that he would not send them away out of the country.
Now there was on the mountainside a great herd of pigs feeding.
All the demons begged him, saying,
"Send us into the pigs, that we may enter into them."
At once Jesus gave them permission.
The unclean spirits came out and entered into the pigs.
The herd of about two thousand rushed down the steep bank into the sea,
and they were drowned in the sea.
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