Here it is straight from the camel's mouth:
[size=4]Saudi schoolgirls' fire deaths decried
[/size=4]
By Tarek Al-Issawi, ASSOCIATED PRESS
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Government-run newspapers in Saudi Arabia have accused the country's religious police of preventing the rescue of girls trapped in a school fire because they were not wearing the long dresses and head coverings required in public.
Fourteen girls died in the catastrophe a week ago at the 31st Girls Middle School in Mecca. Fifty others were injured, while hundreds of others escaped.
The religious police, which have offices in every city, are routinely criticized privately in Saudi society, but this was believed to be the first time that newspapers in the kingdom have come out with harsh words against them.
The newspapers accused members of the religious police — the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice — of blocking rescue attempts by male firefighters and paramedics because some of the girls were not wearing the mandatory Islamic dress, which covers the entire body and hair.
"They forced the girls to remain inside the school and didn't allow them to leave, saying that their hair wasn't covered and they weren't wearing the abaya (long robe)," the Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper said, citing firefighters and police.
The government-run Saudi Gazette said 835 students and 55 teachers were in the building at the time of the fire, which broke out a half-hour after classes started. The Saudi Press Agency said students started screaming, setting off a stampede for the exits.
Initial reports said some gates were locked because a guard who had the key was away. [b]But Al-Eqtisadiah quoted unidentified civil police officers as saying that religious police blocked the gate and refused to move even after rescuers tried to convince them that the situation was very serious[/b].
According to the newspaper reports, most of the victims either suffocated, fell from the windows of the four-story building or were trampled to death.
The head of Mecca's police, Brigadier Mohammed al-Harthy, told the Associated Press yesterday that he arrived at the scene to find a member of the religious police "trying to interfere."
"He was fighting with a police officer, trying to prevent him from entering the school," Mr. al-Harthy said. "I immediately instructed him to leave, and he did."
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