From Mona Eltahawy's
searing article in
Foreign Policy on what amounts to region-wide gender apartheid:
How much does Saudi Arabia hate women? So much so that 15 girls died
in a school fire in Mecca in 2002, after "morality police" barred them
from fleeing the burning building -- and kept firefighters from rescuing
them -- because the girls were not wearing headscarves and cloaks
required in public. And nothing happened. No one was put on trial.
Parents were silenced. The only concession to the horror was that girls'
education was quietly taken away by then-Crown Prince Abdullah from the
Salafi zealots, who have nonetheless managed to retain their vise-like
grip on the kingdom's education system writ large.
This, however, is no mere Saudi phenomenon, no hateful curiosity in the
rich, isolated desert. The Islamist hatred of women burns brightly
across the region -- now more than ever.
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