Saudi women drop plans for 'drive-in' after legal threats

This from AFP via Gulf News, printed October 25, 2013. A link to the story is here, and the story is below.

Dubai: Activists pressing for an end to Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving have dropped plans to hold a “drive-in” Saturday after threats of legal action against anyone getting behind the wheel.

Instead, rather than making the date of October 26 a symbolic one, they have called for an open-ended campaign.

“Out of caution and respect for the interior ministry’s warnings ... we are asking women not to drive tomorrow and to change the initiative from an October 26 campaign to an open driving campaign,” activist Najla Al Hariri said on Friday.

Several women said they had received telephone calls from the ministry, which openly warned on Thursday of measures against activists who chose to participate, asking them to promise not to drive on Saturday.

Ministry spokesman General Mansur Al Turki said: “It is known that women in Saudi are banned from driving and laws will be applied against violators and those who demonstrate in support” of this cause.

On Wednesday, the ministry said it would crack down against anyone who attempts to “disturb public peace” by congregating or marching “under the pretext of an alleged day of female driving.”

In remarks to the Al Hayat daily published on Friday, Turki even warned against supporting the campaign online.

When asked what would happen to those who did, Turki said legal measures will be taken “against whoever violates the anti-cyber crimes law,” an offence punishable by up to five years in prison in the kingdom.

Activists have repeatedly insisted throughout their campaign that no demonstrations would be held in the country, which officially bans public gatherings.

A campaign website, where an online petition amassed more than 16,000 signatures before authorities blocked it two weeks later, was hacked on Friday.

“Drop the leadership of Saudi women,” read a cryptic message in English posted on the website, http://www.oct26driving.com.

Referring to Saturday, blogger Eman Nafjan said “the date was only symbolic, and women have begun driving before and will continue to drive after October 26.”

Over the past two weeks, videos posted online have shown women already driving in Saudi Arabia.

Women who have defied the law in the past have run into trouble with the authorities and been harassed by compatriots.

In 1990, authorities stopped 47 women who got behind the wheel in a demonstration against the driving ban

In 2011, activist Manal Al Sharif, one of the organisers of this Saturday’s campaign, was arrested and held nine days for posting online a video of herself behind the wheel.

That year Saudi police arrested a number of women who defied the driving ban and forced them to sign a pledge not to drive again.

Saudi women are forced to cover from head to toe and need permission from a male guardian to travel, work and marry.

Detained Saudi blogger sees momentum for women drivers

 Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY 12:30 p.m. EDT October 14, 2013 (story pasted below, a link to it is here.

Saudi women plan a rolling protest through Riyadh and other cities Oct. 26 in defiance of a ban on women driving.

 A Saudi female blogger who was detained last week for filming women driving through Riyadh says she believes a campaign to to let women drive — which will culminate in a rolling protest Oct. 26 — is gaining momentum in various levels of society.

Eman Al-Nafjan, who writes the blog Saudiwoman, was stopped by police while tweeting as she filmed a female friend behind the wheel.
She tells CNN that her concern over being stopped was eased when she saw that "police were smiling and easygoing, and their attitude was very positive.The police were really nice to us."Al-Nafjan says she was required to sign two documents, one saying that would no longer get into a car with a woman driving, and another that she would no longer film women driving.
When asked if she would adhere to the agreements, Al-Nafjan tells CNN that "it doesn't matter whether or not I go out. This isn't about me. This is a people's movement. This is not about me. This is about many women."

This recent video is of a man in the city of Buraida teaching his mother how to drive:



Women technically are not banned by Saudi law from driving, they are only prevented from getting Saudi driver's licenses or using foreign licenses. Because of the ban, Saudi women must rely on male spouses, relatives or chauffeurs to provide transportation.

Last week in London, Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed support for Saudi women in their campaign, the Associated Press reports.
"I'm all for it," Clinton said. "It is an issue that is symbolic." She added that the ban is "hard to even rationalize" in today's world.
Al-Nafjan tells The New York Times blog The Lede that even the officers who stopped her and the woman driving expressed their support for female drivers. She adds that the officers had only stopped them because of her live Twitter reporting on the protest drive.
On Monday, in a new twist, she posted on her Twitter account @Saudiwoman a video of a Saudi man teaching his mother to drive in Al-Qassim province.
The Oct. 26 driving protest through Riyadh and other Saudi cities is being promoted on the website Oct26driving.com. The petition, called "I support women drivers on 26 October 2013," says:

Since there is no justification for the Saudi government to prohibit adult women citizens who are capable of driving cars from doing so, we urge the state to provide appropriate means for women seeking the issuance of permits and licenses to apply and obtain them.

There have been a few major challenges to the driving ban in past three decades. In 1990, police cracked down on 47 female drivers, firing many of the protesters from government jobs and barring them from traveling outside the country. In 2011 a Saudi woman was sentenced to 10 lashes for driving, the Saudi blog Riyadh Bureau notes.
 A larger protest by more than 50 women that same year, at the height of the Arab Spring, was largely ignored by police.
There are also indications that the once solid wall of opposition by the Saudi government and among ordinary Saudis is beginning to crumble, however slowly.
Sheikh Abdulatif al-Sheikh, the head of the morality police, recently told Reuters that there was no text in the documents making up sharia law that bars women from driving.
Last week, three female members of Saudi Arabia's Shoura Council introduced a recommendation to the body to lift the ban on women driving.
One YouTube video of woman driving through Riyadh recently featured male drivers pulling alongside and showing a "thumbs up" sign.