Saudi women defy government driving ban

Many Saudi women have chosen to defy the conservative Saudi government's ban on driving following a call on social networking sites for a protest.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Many Saudi women have chosen to defy the conservative Saudi government's ban on driving following a call on social networking sites for a protest.
The staunchly Islamic conservative kingdom is faced with a growing women's rights movement as women tire of socially enforced male-only privileges.

Perhaps surprisingly, many men are now supporting their wives' petition to drive. Several Twitter posts on Friday revealed women who stressed that their husbands supported their decision, or in others men tweeted that they let their wives drive for the day. Such support from men is surprising, but not entirely unexpected as a new wave of democratic ideals, known as the Arab Spring, sweeps the Middle East.

This is the first case of organized protest against the driving ban since 1990 when 47 women drove their cars around Riyadh until arrested. After 21 years of relative quiet, Saudi women are insisting that this effort will end differently and bring progress and change to the country. Wajeha al-Huwaidar, a Saudi women's rights activist said, "We want women from today to begin exercising their rights." She added, "Today on the roads is just the opening in a long campaign, we will not go back.'' The Facebook page that is being used to organize the campaign announces that the campaign will continue, "until a royal decree allowing women to drive is issued."

Women in Saudi Arabia must live by a rigid set of rules, including having to cover from head to toe in public, needing permission from a male guardian to travel, and being unable to work in many occupations because of legally enforced segregation. The government has previously taken a strong stance against the violation of such rules, including the 10 day imprisonment of a woman who posted a video of herself driving and who was only released after signing a pledge that she would not drive or speak publicly again. Such cases, however, are bringing international attention to the plight of Saudi women.

The Saudi government, long backed by the West, faces a tough decision. They can crack down on the women, thus bringing unwanted international pressure from longtime and badly needed Western allies, or they can loosen restrictions on women and face internal backlash from conservative clerics and other groups that oppose reforms. There are no laws banning Saudi women from driving, but long-standing religious decrees, or fawtas have similar effect. The religious decrees against driving are related to the concern that women may start to pursue illicit affairs with men if they are not chaperoned by hired drivers or male relatives.

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Presently, King Abdullah has promised some social reforms, but his dependency on the clerics to support his rule means he must choose carefully what and how much to reform. He is unlikely to make any reforms that will undermine his power.

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