Half-Sleeve Shirts and Metal Detectors

The Geometry of Suspicion

The National Testing Agency does not trust buttons. A button larger than one centimetre in diameter is classified as potential surveillance equipment. When we stood in the queue at 11:00 AM under forty-three degree heat, guards were using kitchen scissors to cut the sleeves off students' shirts.

Girls were told to remove hairclips, earrings, nosepins, and religious threads. The examination hall was treated like a maximum security wing, yet three weeks later, paper leaks were discovered originating from official distribution vans.