Tomorrow women across Saudi Arabia are going to do something drastic. Something women in many parts of the world do every day without much thought while running errands, picking the kids up from school, going to work. They are going to drive.
A Saudi woman gets out of a car after being given a ride by her driver in Riyadh © Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images
An online campaign has called on women who hold international driving licences to start driving on Saudi Arabian roads on June 17th.
The “Women2Drive” campaign has used Facebook and Twitter to encourage women to drive as part of their normal daily activities rather than converge in one place.
Saudi Arabia has long banned women from driving. According to embassy cables released by Wikileaks, the ban against women driving in Saudi Arabia dates all the way back to a 1991 fatwa issued by the late grand mufti against gender “mixing.”
Not allowing women behind the wheel in Saudi Arabia is an immense barrier to their freedom of movement, and severely limits their ability to carry out everyday activities. This is just one example of so many areas of life where women in Saudi Arabia have their human rights and their agency denied.
Saudi Arabian authorities must stop treating women as second-class citizens and open the Kingdom’s roads to women drivers.
Saudi authorities have clamped down on recent attempts to defy the driving ban by women who hold international driving licences.
Authorities in the city of al-Khobar in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province last month arrested Manal al-Sharif, a 32-year-old computer security consultant, after she drove on more than one occasion and urged other women to drive in a video she posted to YouTube.
She was forced to sign a pledge that she would not drive again and was released after 10 days.
Since her arrest, several women have reportedly been arrested on various occasions for driving in different parts of Saudi Arabia and released shortly after signing pledges not to drive in future.
Women in Saudi Arabia face severe discrimination in both law and in practice. They are denied the right to vote, and must obtain the permission of a male guardian before they can travel, take paid work or enroll in higher education, or marry. Domestic violence against women is believed to be rife.
We stand behind Saudi Arabian women standing up for their rights and fighting discrimination by peacefully challenging the status quo.
This is inspirational. More support for this the better. Good on them, it's time this discrimination stopped once and for all.
What really sad is that I've lived in Saudi and I have family there and the way that the women get around is that they hire a driver who is obviously going to be a male (a non mehram, Islamic which refers to members of the opposite sex that women are prescribed to wear the head covering) nullifies the bases of the "fatwa" by the grand mufti on gender “mixing.”
This is inspirational. More support for this the better. Good on them, it’s time this discrimination stopped once and for all.
What the heck does "OK wow that make a lot of 'sene' dude mean???" Latif, I understand your response and it makes very good sense. Hopefully the time has come for women in Saudi Arabia to enjoy the same freedoms as women in most parts of the world. The world is changing because people are becoming confident enough and brave enough and educated enough to demand the change from their governments that they want to see. You get the changes that your society is mobilized to demand…not by bombing a country into submission.
What really sad is that I’ve lived in Saudi and I have family there and the way that the women get around is that they hire a driver who is obviously going to be a male (a non mehram, Islamic which refers to members of the opposite sex that women are prescribed to wear the head covering) nullifies the bases of the “fatwa” by the grand mufti on gender “mixing.”
What the heck does “OK wow that make a lot of ‘sene’ dude mean???” Latif, I understand your response and it makes very good sense. Hopefully the time has come for women in Saudi Arabia to enjoy the same freedoms as women in most parts of the world. The world is changing because people are becoming confident enough and brave enough and educated enough to demand the change from their governments that they want to see. You get the changes that your society is mobilized to demand…not by bombing a country into submission.
@amnesty a saudi women is not a strange creature so that everyone has to say her/his opinion about the issue of weather she could drive a car or not … it's a matter of rules and regulations of the country. i am supporting women older than 28 years are allowed to drive in the city . i wish that invidious distinctions 'll vanish soon in all cognitive issues in our culture .
@amnesty a saudi women is not a strange creature so that everyone has to say her/his opinion about the issue of weather she could drive a car or not … it’s a matter of rules and regulations of the country. i am supporting women older than 28 years are allowed to drive in the city . i wish that invidious distinctions ‘ll vanish soon in all cognitive issues in our culture .