MADINAH, 15 June 2004 — High drama at the National Dialogue Forum was triggered by Dr. Muhammad Al-Arifi, of the Teachers’ College in Riyadh, who said women had gained more rights than they were entitled to.
Some female teachers at schools and universities were neither intellectually fit for the job nor decently dressed, he said, while others who studied abroad were attempting to spread “Western feminist ideas” among their students.
He also complained that some women were allowed back to work after they broke the law during the 1991 Gulf War, sources said.
“Saudi women have earned more than their rights, as evident by the fact that the women who led a demonstration driving cars in Riyadh 12 years ago were given their jobs back afterward, and this is something that did not happen to men.”
These women were “a source of anxiety because their ideas are implanted in the minds of students,” Arifi added.
One woman was so overwhelmed with the comments she broke into tears.
In responding to his comments, Dr. Wafa Al-Rasheed, director of United Nations Program in Riyadh, said she took part in numerous conferences where as a Saudi woman she was met with more respect and appreciation than she encountered at the dialogue forums in the Kingdom.
“As a mother, I fear for my children if this extremist spirit dominates” in the Kingdom, she said.
Sheikh Abdullah Al-Mutlaq, a senior scholar, had to intervene to defuse tensions that threatened to throw the conference into disarray after some delegates threatened to leave unless Al-Arifi retracted his comments and apologized.
By the time delegates resumed discussion after noon prayers, there was no apology from Al-Arifi, who also refused to talk to the press.
In a television statement later he described reports about what happened in the closed session as lies.
