SAUDI ARABIAN WOMEN PROTESTING BAN ON FEMALE DRIVERS TAKE TO THE ROAD

SAUDI ARABIA

They’re on the road to women’s rights. More than 60 courageous Saudi Arabian women got behind the wheel Saturday to protest their country’s tacit ban on female driving — and said they faced little protest by police.
In hitting the roads, the women braved the real possibility of being arrested and losing their jobs. But activists said the protest was a vital step in fighting their government’s oppression of women, and the belief by hard-line Islamists that female drivers could unravel the very fabric of society.

Though no laws ban women from driving in Saudi Arabia, authorities do not issue them licenses. Women who drove on Saturday had driver’s licenses from abroad, activists said.

Activist Aziza Youssef, a professor at King Saud University, said protest ­organizers received 13 videos and about 50 phone messages from women showing they had driven.

May Al Sawyan, 32, a mother of two and an economic researcher, said she drove from her home in Riyadh to the grocery store and back. Activists uploaded to the campaign’s YouTube account a four-minute video of her driving.

Al Sawyan said she was prepared to be jailed if caught by authorities. She said she was far enough from a police car that she was not spotted.

“I just took a small loop,” she said. “I didn’t drive for a long way, but it was fine.”
It is not clear if police turned a blind eye to women driving or simply did not see the scattered quick spins around towns.

A security official speaking on condition of anonymity said authorities did not arrest or fine any female drivers on Saturday.

Hardline clerics say women driving will lead to “licentiousness.”

A prominent cleric caused a stir when he claimed medical studies show that driving a car harms a woman’s ovaries.

Saturday’s drive-by protest was not the first time women had taken to their cars in protest.

In 1990, 50 women got behind the wheel and were arrested.

They ultimately had their passports confiscated and lost their jobs.

In June 2011, about 40 women hit the road in several cities in a protest sparked when a woman was arrested after posting a video of herself driving.

Later, another woman driver was arrested and sentenced to 10 lashes, but King Abdullah overturned the sentence.