Mecca, Saudi Arabia (TML) – Hundreds of angry students start screaming. Together they charge a nearby classroom. They break tables and chairs, destroy the school kitchen and attack the headmistress. Shoes, pens and books are thrown at her, she is threatened with death, and forced to run back and lock herself into her office for protection.

Such a scene would scare parents, teachers, education officials and local police in any country.

It takes on a whole new meaning when it takes place at a girls’ school in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, on the eastern seaboard of Saudi Arabia, a country known for its strict controls on women’s behavior and an extensive internal security apparatus.

According to police and local Saudi media reports, the incident began Monday when Hasna Al-Ghafari, the headmistress of the 17th Intermediate Girls’ School in Mecca, was told that a group of girls were sending each other obscene video recordings on their mobile phones.

School officials began searching students’ belongings during midterm exams, confiscating seven mobile phones with cameras, perfume and makeup. School officials claim that hundreds of students refused to be searched and began shouting, breaking tables and chairs, opening gas canisters and destroying the school’s kitchen. When the headmistress arrived on the scene, she claims that 500 pupils began “viciously” attacking her with books, pens and shoes.

“I was forced to run away and lock myself in my office for protection,” she told the Saudi Gazette, adding that one of the students threatened to kill her.

Female jail wardens were called in to break up the students after the headmistress called her husband in desperation.

Mecca’s Education Department is investigating the incident and has questioned some of the students, who were reported to have claimed that the headmistress had repeatedly mistreated them, banned students from using mobile phones and locked them in classrooms.

Saudi teachers, education officials and women’s rights activists were largely surprised by the incident.

“Kids in Saudi schools are generally treated like they are in an army,” Wajiha Al-Huwaidar, a women’s rights activist and former teacher told The Media Line. “It’s incredibly strict and most schools have a very high level of control over kids, especially girls.”

“Students have uniforms, have to behave a certain way, and are very closely watched,” she said. “There are also religious police in front of each girls’ school and you can’t even bring a newspaper or magazine to school.”

“But at the end of the day, you cannot control everybody,” Al-Huwaidar said. “There is crime and gangs in some of the schools, and all teenagers, even those from good families, are sometimes aggressive.”

Eman Al Nafjan, a Saudi teacher, argued increased restrictions on a school’s ability to discipline students has led to problems like this.

“It’s not common, but I’ve taught in a school like that and attacks on teachers do happen,” she told The Media Line. “Some students are very tough. They talk back, and they don’t listen, so I know where the headmistress is coming from and when the principal’s husband said his wife ‘was hard on the students because they were hard on her’, that’s what he’s referring to.”

“When I was a student it was common for teachers to hit students,” Al Nafjan said. “Today the ministry of education is extremely strict about any teacher physically abusing a student. The students know this and abuse it so it’s just gotten out of hand because nobody is allowed to touch a child. I know one principal who hit a student and even though she is well connected she was demoted into an administrative position and transferred to another city.”

Another Saudi teacher, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said student violence was more common in girls’ schools serving immigrant communities.

“There are lots of areas in Riyadh and Mecca with large communities of first or second generation African immigrants,” she told The Media Line. “They stick together so it’s very hard to penetrate the community or get to know them.”

“These are schools in very poor communities so the students don’t have the typical student life and that carries into the school,” she added. “Many of the students are much older than they should be for their grade, work at night, or even beg on the streets. They come to school late, don’t take well to authority and are very rebellious.”

But Wajiha Al-Huwaidar said violence in Saudi girls’ schools was a product of class, not race.

“This has nothing to do with African communities,” the former teacher and women’s rights activist said. “If it’s a neglected poor area, you find that families can’t watch their kids as much, so they don’t listen, shout and have behavior problems. Nobody wants to teach in these schools.”

“It’s an issue we face in the neglected areas of all cities in Saudi,” Al-Huwaidar added. “I used to teach in a school like this, in a neighborhood well known for prostitution, and some of the girls want to be like their mothers. So teachers have all sorts of problems.”

Mobile phones with cameras are prohibited in girls’ schools in Saudi Arabia, which follows a strict Wahhabist interpretation of Islam.

A 13-year-old girl made international headlines last month after she was sentenced to a two-months prison term and 90 lashes in front of her classmates after she allegedly hit the school’s headmistress on the head with a cup. The incident, which took place last year in the northeastern Saudi port city of Jubail, followed the girl’s camera-equipped mobile phone being confiscated by the headmistress.

The Tribune Democrat, Johnstown, PA - Newspaper objects to police seizure of newsroom computer: NEW CASTLE, Pa. — The New Castle News said Friday it will file a court protest against the unannounced seizure by authorities of a newsroom computer that police say was used to illegally record phone conversations with two local public officials about a proposed police training facility.

The News’ petition will ask that the city police department return the computer immediately, saying it is important to the daily production of the paper and could be subject to indiscriminate search of sensitive news files.

Sgt. Kevin Seelbaugh confiscated the computer the afternoon of July 25 after District Justice Melissa A. Amodie issued a search warrant to determine if News reporter Pat Litowitz had recorded conversations with Northwest Lawrence Regional Police Chief Jim Morris and Mahoning Township Supervisor Francis Exposito without informing them beforehand.

Morris asked Seelbaugh to seek the search warrant on the basis that a state privacy law requires both parties consent to a recorded phone conversation in Pennsylvania. Violation of the law is a third-degree felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Morris learned from his wife, Debbie Wachter Morris, who also is a reporter at The News, that Litowitz recorded a conversation with the chief and also with Exposito.

The phone conversations at issue concerned a story Litowitz was pursuing about a proposed police training facility in Mahoning Township. There was no contention by Chief Morris or Exposito that Litowitz had represented himself as anything other than a reporter for The News.

On July 17, Litowitz initiated a call to Morris, who was unavailable, telling him the subject of his inquiry. Morris later returned the call to Litowitz’s cell phone. Litowitz also talked with Exposito about the story.

Eventually, the story was written by News reporter Nancy Lowry, who also had gathered information about the police training facility. Litowitz played the recorded calls with Chief Morris and Exposito for Lowry so she could use the information in her story.

Lowry said she mentioned the recorded conversations to Wachter Morris, who then told her husband. That’s when Chief Morris contacted New Castle police and the computer was seized, along with several record devices belonging to Litowitz, during an unannounced visit to the newsroom by Seelbaugh.

News publisher Max Thomson said he did not protest the search and seizure at the time because he considered the matter “largely an internal office misunderstanding that could be worked out. Those efforts have failed and the district attorney, for whatever reason, has decided to pursue the case.”

Chief Morris declined to say why he pursued the case against Litowitz and whether he considered their conversation to be off the record.

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