ABHA – The stampede and property damage at King Khaled University in Abha on Wednesday was caused by the university refusing to allow female students to use the Internet and their smartphones inside the building, according to Shunaifa Al-Qarni, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Literature. About 50 students lost consciousness and 22 were taken to hospital. Prince Faisal Bin Khaled Bin Abdulaziz, Emir of Asir region, has set up a special committee to investigate the incident. The committee met for three hours on Wednesday. Al-Qarni called on the committee to take strict measures to prevent the occurrence of such incidents. “Everyone should know the truth. What happened was some female students wanted to use the Internet and their iPhones and Blackberry devices inside [the building].” She also blamed students from outside the university for causing the chaos. Al-Qarni said that supervisors found some students from outside the college during the stampede. She called for a mechanism to double-check student identity cards. In contrast to the comments from Al-Qarni, several female students said they were provoked by the university supervisors, who searched them and threw some of their belongings in garbage bins. Tahani, a female student, said: “The situation was quite normal until 10:00 A.M. Wednesday. The jostling and stampede started when one of the female supervisors attacked a female student accusing her of being the cause of the stampede the day before. This resulted in the female students screaming and protesting at this action.” Nawal, a female student, said: “At the start of the day, the female supervisors started frisking the female students in a provocative way. The supervisors began throwing the girls' items including books, perfumes and even sandwiches into the garbage bins. As a result there was pushing and jostling, causing many students to fall.” Fatima, also a student, said that it was “unacceptable” for some of the students to damage the university's doors, benches and stalls. “The female students could have presented their demands and problems in a better way without creating this chaos. On the contrary, some of the female supervisors dealt with the female students in a civilized way.” __
