Saudi women notably lack several rights vis-a-vis their counterparts in other Arab countries, such as the right to drive. And at Saudi Arabia’s Qassim University, women now can’t come to class with their cell phones either, based on a university decision. The move has sparked outrage on Twitter, and the Arabic-language hashtag #cellphones_demands_at–Qassim_University_1 and others trended on Twitter this week.
According to an article in the Arabic-language news site Raseef22, the university banned women from bringing their phones saying that students were filming others and exposing them to risk of blackmail.
But this didn’t suffice for many on Twitter. As Raseef22 notes, people hammered the university for the decision on the social media site.
#جوالات_طالبات_جامعة_القصيم1
جامعة القصيم فرع البنات من أسوأ الجامعات بالسعودية كنظام، منبر من منابر التخلف، خالص تعاطفي للبنات اللي هناك.— مجيد (@ma7ee4) September 19, 2016
Qassim University's branch for girls is one of the worst universities in Saudi Arabia, a platform of backwardness, sincere sympathy for the girls that go there.
Women’s rights are a touchy issue in the Kingdom, and Saudi women’s rights are routinely infringed upon by the state, according to many observers. Critics often cite the country’s male guardianship laws and the ban on women driving as evidence of this. On the other hand, Saudi women gained the right to vote and run for office in 2015.
This is not the first time a hashtag has called for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia either. In August, #StopEnslavingSaudiWomen trended on Twitter as people took the Kingdom’s male guardianship laws to task.
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