Many in Saudi Arabia say they would love to see women driving, only the driving culture is not quite safe enough for women to take the wheel. While I argue that women on the road would calm things down and literally slow the traffic, this YouTube video explains their point of view.
Hmmmm!
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Third Saudi woman sues for right to drive
The Independent On-line daily of South Africa has printed an AFP story that Nassimah al-Sadah of Riyadh is suing the traffic department in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province for the right to drive. A link to the story is here and the story is pasted below.
Saudi woman sues over driving ban
Riyadh - A Saudi women's rights activist said
on Monday she has filed a lawsuit against the interior ministry over a
decree banning women from obtaining driving licences in the
ultra-conservative kingdom.
Nassima al-Sadah is the third woman to file
such a lawsuit this year over the rule which enforces a traditional ban
on women driving in the Muslim desert nation.
“I filed the lawsuit against the traffic
department of the interior ministry at the Dammam court” in Eastern
Province, she saidtold AFP.
Before her, Manal al-Sharif, who became a
symbol of a campaign to drive after she was arrested last year for
defying the ban, and rights activist Samar Badawi also filed similar
lawsuits.
Sadah said she made a point by trying repeatedly to apply for a driving licence at the traffic department in Eastern Province.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that bans women from driving.
In June 2011, women activists launched a
Women2Drive campaign on social media networks, with many also braving
the ban and posting videos of themselves driving.
The following June, activists cancelled plans
to get behind the steering wheel on the first anniversary of their
campaign, opting instead to petition King Abdullah to lift the ban.
Their campaign, which spread through Facebook
and Twitter, was the largest mass action since November 1990, when 47
Saudi women were arrested and punished after demonstrating in cars.
Women in the kingdom who have the means hire drivers, while others must depend on the goodwill of male relatives.
They are also obliged to be veiled in public,
and cannot travel unless accompanied by their husbands or a close male
relative. - AFP
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