Saudi Arabia detains women's rights activists weeks before female driving ban comes to an end

On May 18, 2018 the Washington Post broke the story that activists supporting women driving in Saudi Arabia had been detained. This story from the UK's Telegraph has now published it to. A link to the story is here and the text is pasted below. 

By Raf Sanchez

18 May 2018 • 3:58pm

Saudi Arabia has detained several prominent female activists who campaigned for women’s right to drive, taking them into custody just weeks before the decades-long driving ban finally comes to an end.
Human rights groups said Loujain al-Hathloul, Eman al-Nafjan and Aziza al-Yousef - three of the most prominent voices demanding women be free to drive - were all detained on Thursday. Two male advocates for women’s rights were also detained, activists said.

The activists were detained as Saudi Arabia prepares for the driving ban to come to an end on June 24. The policy shift has become a symbol of the modernising drive of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and the Saudi government is eager for positive media coverage of the move. 

The detentions appear to be an effort by Saudi authorities to make sure they do not have to share credit for the end of the driving ban with activists who spent years campaigning for it.
They may also be concerned that the women right’s campaigners would use the end of the driving to call for further advances in women’s freedom - like an end to the male guardianship system that severely limits Saudi women’s ability to travel independently.

A woman in a black niqab drives in Saudi Arabia

Neither Ms Narfjan nor Ms Hathloul could be reached for comment. Ms Hathloul told The Telegraph earlier this year that shortly before Saudi authorities announced the end of the driving ban in September she was warned not to speak publicly about it.

Instead, she Tweeted just the word “Alhamdulillah” in Arabic, or “Praise be to God”.
“Shutting up or submitting to these threats is unacceptable to me, it is not an option to stay quiet any more,” she said, breaking her silence in January. “We have been quiet for too long.”
Ms Hathloul had been detained twice before for her activism. She and other Saudi women sometimes filmed themselves driving in defiance of the ban and published the videos online, to the fury of the government.
Ms Hathloul was voted the third-most powerful Arab woman by Forbes in 2015, but was forced to quit her job that same year because of driving restrictions. Her husband, a well-known Saudi comedian who acts as her male guardian, was often out of the country meaning she had to pay for taxis to and from work.

Saudi women tour a car showroom for women on January 11, 2018, in the Saudi Red Sea port city of Jeddah. Credit: AFP

“The Uber and Careem applications would take more than 30 per cent of my salary. For instance I would pay 2,000-3,000 riyals (£375-560) a month to get around, while my salary was 6,000 riyals,” she said. “At the end of the month I basically had nothing.”
It was not clear if she or any or any of the other activists had been charged with a crime. Prisoners of Conscience, a human rights group, said that two men - Mohammed al-Rabjah and Ibrahim al-Mdmyegh - had also been arrested.

The driving ban has been in place since 1979 and women’s rights activists have been fighting it against for it for decades. In 1990, around 50 women launched the first high profile protest by driving in a convoy around Riyadh. They were eventually stopped by police.
The Saudi government under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed has shown itself willing to use detention as a tool against political rivals. Dozens of princes and prominent businessmen were arrested in November and detained at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh on allegations of corruption.
Most were released only after agreeing to pay large sums as part of a settlement with the authorities.

Review of DARING TO DRIVE by Saudi Blogger Iman al-Nafjan

Saudi blogger Eman Fahad al-Nafjan reviewed Manal al-Sharif's book DARING TO DRIVE, which was released today.  Here is the link to her post:  Saudi Woman's Weblog. 
Lovely review.

4 Saudi female drivers' detention varied by their locations

Mohammed Jamjoom of CNN reported on December 12, 2013 the latest news on Saudi women driving in the Kingdom in spite of the driving ban. A link to his story is here,  and the story is pasted in below.

Saudi activist, Manal Al Sharif, drives her car in Dubai on October 22 in defiance of the authorities to campaign for women's rights to drive in Saudi Arabia.

(CNN) -- Four women were detained by traffic police in two Saudi Arabian cities this week for defying the Kingdom's driving ban, according to all the women stopped.

In the Red Sea port city of Jeddah Thursday, two women, Sahar Naseef and Tamador Alyami, were stopped by police after being spotted in a car on one of the city's main thoroughfares.

Alyami, who's been an avid supporter of a two-month-old campaign seeking to gain the right to drive for women in Saudi Arabia, told CNN she and Naseef were hoping to get caught.

"We did go driving on a main street where we know there's a lot of traffic police," explained Alyami, who was in the passenger seat.

"We're just trying to push and see how far can we go with this," said Alyami, "because two women yesterday were caught by police and detained for 10 hours. Today, in a different city it was totally different. We were caught and stopped for only two hours."

The woman who drove the car, Naseef, told CNN she was so convinced she and Alyami would spend the night in jail, she even packed a toothbrush, some shampoo and an extra set of clothing.

For Alyami, an author and columnist who's driven herself around Jeddah five times now, getting behind the wheel is no longer enough in an extraordinary campaign of civil disobedience that has seen dozens of women taking to the streets since October.

"We're asking girls in different regions to go out," she said, "because we're trying to see if police in different regions react differently to cases of women driving."

According to Naseef and Alyami, the traffic police officer who pulled them over was very kind to them and even supportive of their cause. They said he told them that due to protocol, he had to call for backup, and they were soon surrounded by several more police cars. In the end, Naseef had to sign a pledge not to drive again in the presence of a male relative before the women could be released.

One day earlier in the country's capital, Riyadh, which is in a far more conservative part of the country, two other women described a far more difficult experience after being caught driving.

Azza Al-Shamasi and Bareah Alzubeedy told CNN they were detained at a Riyadh police station for more than 10 hours after being caught and pulled over by traffic police.

Al-Shamasi, who was driving, said when they first started driving down one of Riyadh's main streets, many male drivers around them were giving them signs of support. Half an hour later, after a traffic police officer spotted them, they were pulled over.

"We were then surrounded by six cop cars, and the people who stopped us were quite rude," said Al-Shamasi.

According to Al-Shamasi, despite the fact that her husband came to the police station shortly after she was taken there, it still took at least eight more hours before she was released into his custody.

Alzubeedy explained they were not looking to attract the police's attention, just simply doing what they should be able to do.

"Freedom of movement is a right," said Alzubeedy, a human rights activist. "This is a right for women here. There's no law that bars women from driving in Saudi Arabia, and I hope more women will go out and drive."

Despite repeated attempts, CNN was unable to reach Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry for comment.

The issue of women driving is a particularly sensitive and controversial one in Saudi Arabia, the last country on Earth where females don't have that right. In recent years, though, more women have challenged the government, urging officials to overturn the ban and taking to streets in remarkable displays of civil disobedience. Although women are not allowed to drive in the ultraconservative Kingdom, there is, in fact, no law barring them from doing so. But religious edicts are often interpreted to enforce the prohibition.

In May 2011, Manal Al-Sharif was jailed for more than a week after posting a video of herself driving in Saudi Arabia online. She quickly became a hero to many and inspired dozens of women to drive throughout the streets of various cities in June of that year.

More recently, in September, a website for the October 26 Women's Driving Campaign launched, and within a few weeks, tens of thousands had signed an online petition calling for an end to the driving ban for women in Saudi Arabia. As October 26 approached, numerous women filmed themselves driving in the conservative Kingdom and uploaded those clips to sites like YouTube.

In the weeks leading up to October 26, one Saudi cleric gave an interview in which he warned that Saudi women who drove risked damaging their ovaries. On October 24, the country's Interior Ministry issued a statement telling women to stay off the streets.

Despite strong opposition by conservative quarters in the Kingdom, where a puritanical strain of Islam is practiced, October 26 saw dozens of women taking to the streets and driving. The campaign's backers insist the movement is ongoing and has been a success thus far, while its critics say it has failed.

In early December, two of Saudi Arabia's best-known female advocates for lifting the ban on women driving were also detained after being caught behind the wheel in the country's capital. Aziza Al-Yousef, who was driving the car, and her passenger, Eman Al-Nafjan, told CNN they were pulled over and spent a few hours at a police station in Riyadh until being released into the custody of their respective husbands.

2 Saudi women detained for driving in ongoing bid to end ban

Mohammed Jamjoom reports in CNN on December 1, 2013.  You can link to the story here, and the text is pasted in below.

updated 3:47 PM EST, Sun December 1, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Prominent advocates for allowing women to drive detained in Riyadh police station
• Aziza Al-Yousef, the driver, and Eman Al-Nafjan, the passenger, were released to their husbands
• Their efforts follow the October 26 campaign when dozens of Saudi women drove
• Religious interpretation -- not law-- prevents women from driving in the Kingdom

(CNN) -- Two of Saudi Arabia's best-known female advocates for lifting the ban on women driving were detained on Friday after being caught behind the wheel in the country's capital.

Aziza Al-Yousef, who was driving the car, and her passenger, Eman Al-Nafjan, tell CNN they were pulled over and spent a few hours at a police station in Riyadh until being released into the custody of their respective husbands.

Al-Nafjan, one of Saudi Arabia's most prominent bloggers, and one of the organizers of the popular October 26 Women's Driving Campaign, said she decided to go for a spin with Al-Yousef to attract more attention to her cause.

"We were looking for the police. We drove by the police station on purpose," she explained, adding how she welcomed the detention.

Despite repeated attempts, CNN has been unable to reach Riyadh police for comment.

Al-Nafjan, who tweets as "Saudiwoman," says she has grown tired of waiting for the Saudi government to allow women to drive.

Al-Yousef has driven before and was glad to get behind the wheel again on Friday but says she was not deliberately looking to be detained by the police.

"In a way it is good for the cause because you'll the keep the issue in the mind of people," said Al-Yousef. "However, some people might understand wrongly that we're confronting the government and that might slow the process."

Why Saudi Arabia can't ban women from driving forever

Al-Yousef was initially concerned she and Al-Nafjan might go to jail, citing the presence of traffic police, regular police and secret police who were called to the scene. She says the mood of the police had lightened substantially by the time she and Al-Nafjan reached the station.

When her husband came for her, he was asked to sign a statement pledging Al-Yousef would not drive again.

Al-Yousef says her husband jokingly asked, "How can I do that? I can't prevent her from driving. Only God can do that," before signing. She was then released.

The issue of women driving is a particularly sensitive and controversial one in Saudi Arabia, the last country on Earth where females don't have that right. In recent years, though, more women have challenged the government, urging officials to overturn the ban and taking to streets in remarkable displays of civil disobedience. Although women are not allowed to drive in the ultraconservative Kingdom, there is, in fact, no law barring them from doing so. But religious edicts are often interpreted to enforce the prohibition.

"We have tried all the legal channels," explained Al-Nafjan. "The government keeps promising us that all we have to do is be patient and quiet, and we'll eventually get the right to drive. Officials keep saying the women driving issue is one for Saudi society to decide. We wanted to prove that really isn't the case and that the only people who really stop us is the police."

In May 2011, Manal Al-Sharif was jailed for more than a week after posting a video of herself driving in Saudi Arabia online. She quickly became a hero to many and inspired dozens of women to drive throughout the streets of various cities in June of that year.

More recently, in September, a website for the October 26 Women's Driving Campaign launched, and within a few weeks, tens of thousands had signed an online petition calling for an end to the driving ban for women in Saudi Arabia. As October 26 approached, numerous women filmed themselves driving in the conservative Kingdom and uploaded those clips to sites like YouTube.

Opinion: Give Saudi women the right to drive

In the weeks leading up to October 26, one Saudi cleric gave an interview in which he warned that Saudi women who drove risked damaging their ovaries. On October 24, the country's Interior Ministry issued a statement telling women to stay off the streets.

Despite strong opposition by conservative quarters in the Kingdom, where a puritanical strain of Islam is practiced, October 26 saw dozens of women taking to the streets and driving. The campaign's backers insist the movement is ongoing and has been a success thus far, while its critics say it has failed.

Last week, Al-Yousef had an audience with Saudi Arabia's Interior Minister, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, via teleconference. She conveyed a message on behalf of the growing number of women and men calling for an end to the driving ban.

Al-Yousef was told the matter was now in the hands of Saudi King Abdullah, considered a cautious reformer.

"I think it might have been a good thing," said Al-Yousef. "Before the government had said the driving issue was a societal issue. But now that is not an issue anymore. The good thing is now we know clearly that society is not the decision maker."

Al-Yousef added: "We are trying to find a way to reach the King now. We have a letter signed by 3,000-plus people asking for permission to allow women to drive, and we want to find a way to get that letter to the King."

Al-Nafjan, who was detained before for the very same offense, says she will continue pushing the envelope, even if that gets her into legal hot water.

"I wouldn't mind if they prosecuted me," she says. "I think it will further the cause. It's good publicity for the cause -- to be prosecuted for being a passenger in a car driven by a woman. You can't get more medieval."

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.

Video: Saudi Woman Goes for a Defiant Drive

The website Riyadh Connect reports that blogger Eman al-Nafjan and story is here, and the story (with the video) is pasted below. Ms. al-Nafjan has been an activist and blogger supporting women's rights in Saudi Arabia. This blog has posted several stories about her in the past.

Eman Al Nafjan, Saudi blogger and activist got in a car earlier today and drove around the capital city of Riyadh to see what would happen.
This is in the wake of a campaign calling for women to defy the driving ban in Saudi in a protest drive on October 26 that has spread rapidly online over the past week and gained support from prominent women activists.  The website has been blocked.
Al Nafjan, along with another lady driver spent half an hour driving in Riyadh and took pictures to document the entire road trip. They went to a hardware shop and shocked a man who wouldn’t believe they drove themselves.
They also passed by other drivers, police cars, passers by and say that no one really seemed to care that it was a woman who was driving.
Below is the video  documenting her defiant drive around Riyadh.

McManus: Change in Saudi Arabia

Los Angeles Times Op-Ed piece by Doyle McManus; deals with the driving issue among other things women are talking about and fighting for in Saudi Arabia. A link to the story is here and the text is below. It includes an interview with Saudi blogger Eman Al Nafjan, though he spells her name wrong. Eman's blog is here. She is also author of the op-ed in the Arab News that we posted here.

For Saudi women, progress comes slowly, and not at all surely.

Doyle McManus
December 25, 2011

Women in Saudi Arabia won a small but promising victory this year. No, they aren't being allowed to drive; that's still forbidden. Most of the time, they still can't work, travel or even open bank accounts without the approval of a male guardian. But they do have this: Saudi women can now buy lingerie in stores from female salesclerks, instead of the sometimes leering men who used to staff the counters. If this modest wave of liberalization continues, they may even get fitting rooms.

It doesn't sound like much, but in the glacial process of modernization in the tradition-bound kingdom, it's an important step. "This is the beginning of a real social change," Eman Nafjian, one of the new generation of Saudi women's activists, told me over coffee in Riyadh, the capital, last week. "It will allow more women to work in shopping malls. And that's a step toward more opportunities for women's employment in general."

It wasn't easy to win the right to sell lingerie. The change has been debated since 2005, but it was resisted by traditionalists who oppose allowing women to work outside the home — even though, in this case, the prohibition forced women to bargain with men over bras and panties. The rule was changed only after women spent two years agitating through a Facebook campaign called "Enough Embarrassment," and only after the (male) minister of labor was emboldened to obtain and enforce a decree from King Abdullah. (You'd think the king has more important things to do, but a royal decree is the only way anything of significance gets changed in Saudi Arabia.)

That's a microcosm, Nafjian said, of how life is improving for women in Saudi Arabia: slowly, and not at all surely. In Saudi terms, Abdullah is a modernizer; he's promoted education for women, including thousands of college scholarships in the United States, and he's even promised to begin appointing women to his official advisory council, the Shura — but not until 2013. (There's no elected legislature.) Still, each tiny step forward prompts furious resistance from traditionalists, including Islamic scholars who warn that change is irreligious and conservative women who say they like the old ways better.

The debate goes on even in Nafjian's own family, an affluent-but-not-wealthy clan in Riyadh's upper middle class. Her conservative uncle is furious at her for speaking out in public and has demanded that she stop. "He says I'm going to make us all pariahs," she said. "But my father and my brothers stood up for me."

Nafjian, 33, started a blog in English a few years ago, "Saudiwoman's Weblog" (www.saudiwoman.me), that brought the concerns of educated, upwardly mobile Saudi women to a global audience. She's written about basic rights (Saudi women still can't vote), child marriage (in rural areas, girls as young as 8 are sometimes given to older men in marriage) and issues of everyday life, like driving and shopping. "My father would prefer that I blogged about Saudi cooking," she laughed.

She walked into a hotel lobby for our meeting dressed in a black abaya, the head-to-toe garment that Saudi women wear in public, and a veil that concealed most but not all of her hair. She was trailed by her brother Khalid, who came along cheerfully as driver and chaperon. He said he supports her activism. "All these restrictions on women are nuts," he said. Her husband, a telecommunications engineer, supports her stances too, she said. She has three small children, she teaches English, and she's finishing work on a doctorate in linguistics.

The Saudi women's movement won international attention last June when at least five women were arrested for daring to drive their own cars in the country's cities. (Nafjian, who never learned to drive, videotaped the protest as a passenger in a friend's car.) But driving wasn't the main thing that made the government angry (driving by women is tolerated in rural areas); it was the challenge of a noisy, well-publicized protest.

"The driving issue has become a little tedious," Nafjian said. "The ban will be changed one of these days; I'm sure of it. But for the moment, they're happy that all we're asking for is women driving instead of the downfall of the government."

More important than driving, she said, are issues such as basic legal rights (a woman's testimony in court still gets only half the weight of a man's), employment (women are still restricted to jobs where they won't have to mingle with men — mostly teaching, nursing and, now, sales work in women's shops), and the persistent rural practice of forcing young girls into marriage. "It's socially unacceptable to most Saudis," Nafjian said, "but it's a tradition, so there's a lot of resistance to outlawing it."

Does that mean Saudi Arabia's modernizing urban women want to scrap the monarchy — the ultimate patriarchal system — and fast-forward to democracy? Quite the contrary. "A revolution like the ones they had in Egypt and Tunisia would be the worst-case scenario here," Nafjian said. "Most Saudis are conservative. A popular uprising here would make the [militant] Salafists in Egypt look like liberals. We would turn into Taliban."

If she's right, the country's liberals, democrats and cultural modernizers are trapped in the odd predicament of relying on an 87-year-old king and his male heirs for protection. The best-case scenario, she said, would be for a progressive wing of the royal family to rise to power once Abdullah is gone, men who would continue nudging the Saudi economy into the 21st century while keeping the nation's politics firmly rooted in the 7th. But there's no guarantee; the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Nayef, is a noted conservative — and an apparently healthy 78.

Meanwhile, Nafjian said, Saudi Arabia's women will keep organizing through private coffee circles and Internet chatrooms. "We can't be a formal association," she noted. "That's illegal."

And they'll welcome all the foreign attention they can get, as they did during the one-day driving protest in June.

"When foreigners make noise over women's rights, that's a good thing, because we're not allowed to," she said. "The more embarrassing an issue is to the government, the more likely it is to be resolved."

After all, they did get that change in the lingerie stores. By this time next year, with luck, they might even be allowed to drive.

doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

Women driving: Topic is getting tedious

Op-ed by Saudi writer Eman al-Nafjan. A link to the story is here text pasted in below.

By EMAN ALNAFJAN

Published: Dec 18, 2011 23:23 Updated: Dec 18, 2011 23:23

Supporters and opponents of the ban agree it is a petty issue

The ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia is a topic that has become tedious due to the uncountable times it has been written about since the 1980s.

Saudi Arabia is infamous for its gender discrimination When it comes to who gets to sit in the driver's seat. The only thing that rivals it in what the country is known for globally is our never-ending supply of oil. What is ironic is that on both sides, Saudis who oppose and those who are calling for lifting the ban, is that they are in agreement that the whole issue is petty.

Both sides, though, come to this same conclusion of pettiness from different perspectives. Those who are calling for the lift of the ban on women driving point out how the ban is basically put in place as an obstacle to women who otherwise would go out into the workplace and most probably compete with men. However, this obstacle consequently extends to obstructing ease of access to education, health care, work in completely gender-segregated environments and even the basic right to socialize or leave the house for a change of scenery.

Another reason that the ban is in place is the argument that a man in the driver's seat is a deterrent to neighboring cars from flirting with the women passengers. This whole line of reasoning is easily shot down. First of all, who is to say that the employed driver himself won't harass the women passengers? Secondly, I cannot count the times I've come across Saudi men who completely ignored the driver's presence and dangerously harassed and chased cars that carry women passengers.

Harassment on the streets will not stop until as a short-term measure we have strict laws that deter men from even considering lifting up their pre-written signs of their cell phone numbers while they drive precariously next to family cars driven by foreign drivers. The long-term measure would be to throw out the whole wolf-hunting-lambs rhetoric that we keep drilling into the heads of our young people until they really believe that being hunter and prey is just the way it's meant to be rather than mutual respect. For those who oppose women driving, they come to the “pettiness” conclusion from the perspective of prioritization. They, in a rather elitist tone, put the ban mildly as an occasional inconvenience rather than a full-blown obstacle. And since it is merely an occasional inconvenience there are more pertinent women's rights issues to speak out about.

They keep asking people involved in women driving campaigns why they aren't putting this energy into calling for the rights of divorced women to child custody and stable and secure alimony. Or why aren't they putting this energy into equal rights in pension plans regardless of gender. Or even audaciously demanding that instead of facilitating women transportation we should be calling on the government to pay women a stipend to stay home.

Those who oppose women driving have come to this pettiness conclusion after being cornered because their previous religious and traditions arguments have deteriorated in front of Saudi religious scholars and sheikhs who have publicly stated that there is no religious reason to prohibit women from driving and traditional Beduin women have been driving in rural areas for years. The best thing about this decades-old argument and dialogue is that it's not as stagnant as it might seem to the Saudi people.

Having reached the same conclusion, especially for the latter group of those who oppose, we can be much more optimistic about actually reaching a breakthrough. In the 1980s and 90s we were calling for something that according to the public forum was a threat to our religion, traditions and our very way of life. Now after all this back and forth, it has whittled down to a petty cause that is not worth the time and effort of national campaigns.

Although this could be considered an insult to those of us who have worked long and hard on these campaigns and have spoken out against this ban, I think most of us are extremely happy that we have made this much progress and are optimistic that this is only a sign of the ban being lifted in the near future.