Saudi women challenge the driving fatwa

by Yusur Al Bahrani

More than 50 women across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sat behind the wheel on June 17 to defy a decades-old driving ban.

A Facebook and Twitter campaign, “Women2Drive,” called on women who hold international driving licenses to consider driving in the Kingdom as part of their daily activities to defy the ban.

Manal Al-Sharif, a 32-year-old computer security consultant, was arrested on May 22 for driving in the eastern province of Khobar.

Before being arrested, Al-Sharif promoted the “Women2Drive” campaign and uploaded a YouTube video of herself driving. After 10 days of her arrest, Al-Sharif was forced to sign a pledge not to take part in the campaign.

On June 17, five women were arrested and released after their guardians signed a pledge that they would not drive again.

The religious fundamentalist authorities warned women against participating in the campaign. On May 23, a well-known Wahabi cleric, Abdul-Rahman Al-Barak, described women in the campaign as “the keys of evil.”

Al-Barak said, “They will die before celebrating the day in which they can drive.” He said that the religious police would never let them drive.

There is no law in Saudi Arabia that restricts women from driving, but the Kingdom is run by religious edicts, fatwas that follow Wahabism, a rather fundamentalist form of Islam.

Women in Saudi Arabia face continuous discrimination. They don’t have the right to vote and they need to get permission from a male guardian before they travel, take a paid job, enroll in higher education or even marry.