Mecca Girls' School Fire 2002

In 2002, a tragic fire broke out at a girls' school in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, killing 15 young students. Witnesses and local reports strongly suggested that the country's religious police, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, played a role in the disaster. As flames spread, they allegedly blocked girls from fleeing the building because they weren't wearing proper Islamic dress.

The horrific incident sparked outrage inside and outside Saudi Arabia, forcing the government to overhaul school safety measures and curb some powers of the religious police.

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