Saudi women demand the right to drive
Swissinfo ^ | September 24 2007 | Reuters
swissinfo.org
RIYADH (Reuters) - More than 1,000 Saudis have sent a petition to King Abdullah demanding women be allowed to drive in the conservative Muslim kingdom, an activist said on Monday.
The petition was sent on Sunday, Saudi Arabia's National Day, by a women's lobby group calling itself the Committee for Women's Rights to Drive, Wajiha al-Howeider told Reuters.
It marks the first serious effort to break an informal ban on women driving since the early 1990s when a group of women flouted social conventions by driving together through central Riyadh.
"Our hope, as you are leading a reform process in our country, is that legislation allowing women to drive should be one of your projects," said the statement signed by 1,102 Saudi rights activists, mainly women.
"We would like to remind people of what you yourself have said, that women driving is a social not religious issue. Islam has nothing to do with stopping women driving."
It said women in remote areas and inside private housing compounds already drive cars, but that in cities families were forced to spend money on male foreign drivers. The petition was published on a number of Web sites.
Saudi Arabia's powerful religious establishment -- who follow a strict version of Islam known as Wahhabism -- has argued that if women were allowed to drive they would be able to mix freely with unrelated men.
Clerics enforce a strict system of gender segregation in Saudi Arabia, the only country in the world where women cannot drive. Many Saudi men support the ban.
King Abdullah is viewed by many Saudis as a supporter of some social and political reforms including allowing women to drive, but diplomats say his room for manoeuvre is restricted by opposition from clerics and senior princes.
Reuters (IDS) |
