Mix-ups mar Saudi graduation ceremony in London

Nearly 25 percent of the 2012 Saudi students in Britain who qualified to participate in a graduation ceremony organized by the Saudi Cultural Affairs Section at the Saudi Embassy in London failed to register online for the event and did not have seats at the event, prompting a harried remedy of distributing additional tickets and arranging additional seating at the last minute. In the end, some 1,500 male and female graduates attended in addition to around 2,000 guests.
Nevertheless, many students were disappointed. Abdullah Al-Zakri, MBA in Business Administration, said, “I was not allowed to enter the ceremony despite the fact I had registered online for the ceremony four months before and spent much time, effort and expense, in trying to get a ticket to attend.”
Other graduates were not allowed to attend either, saying there was a clear mix-up by the Saudi Cultural Affairs Section despite the fact it had organized two previous ceremonies that went well.
Some families who came especially from Saudi Arabia were not allowed to attend. Fayez Al-Qusaibi, another MBA graduate preparing for his doctoral thesis, said, “I feel sad about the way the cultural affairs section dealt with the students who traveled a long way but didn’t get in.”
Other students expressed their anger about what happened through social media and criticized the fact that they were not allowed to attend such an important event.