Complaints were made that Saudi Arabia's "religious police", specifically the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, had prevented schoolgirls from leaving the burning building and hindered emergency services personnel because the students were not wearing modest clothing.

In a rare instance of public criticism of the organization, Saudi media accused them of hindering the attempts to save the girls.

[6] Hanny Megally, Executive Director of the Middle East division of Human Rights Watch, stated, "women and girls may have died unnecessarily because of extreme interpretations of the Islamic dress code.

[7] On 25 March, the inquiry concluded that while the fire had been caused by a stray cigarette, the religious educational authorities responsible for the school had neglected the safety of the pupils.

The report dismissed allegations that the mutaween (of CPVPV) had prevented the girls from fleeing or made the death toll worse.

[1] In the outrage over the deaths that followed, Crown Prince Abdullah removed girls' schools from the administration of the "General Presidency for Girls' Education"—an "autonomous government agency long controlled by conservative clerics"[4]—and put it under the Ministry of Education, which already controlled boys' schools.

[8] There was another similar incident in 2014; according to a report, a female student at a Saudi university died of a heart attack after being denied access to advanced medical assistance because the paramedics were male.

Senior members of the faculty reportedly prevented the paramedics from entering primarily because the student was not fully covered and they did not want to get into trouble for having men in close proximity to her.

The staff member also said that it appeared that two of the female college deans at the university panicked after hearing about the heart attack.