Following on from the news that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is allowing women to vote in muncipal elections starting in 2015, comes the latest baby step in women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi courts sentenced a woman to 10 lashes for the crime of driving. Not driving recklessly or drunk, just driving while being a woman. King Abdullah has intervened to prevent the sentence being carried out. The King’s intervention was first announced on Twitter by the wife of a billionaire Saudi Prince, in a somewhat surreal contrast to the far less modern situation on which she was commenting.
Women are not permitted to drive cars in Saudi Arabia, a ban which curtails the free movement of women and ensures they cannot travel significant distances without a man knowing. Naturally, many Saudi women, and the more progressive Saudi men, are incensed by this rule and it is often broken by women protesting the Saudi kingdom’s oppressive religious laws.
In general, the Saudi police and courts have enforced the rule with velvet gloves. There has been no known case of official corporal punishment for women driving (although one can guess that quite often they are punished by male relatives in private). Generally, the police will make women sign a statement swearing they will never drive again and send them back to their families. Some offenders have been detained for short periods, including Manal al-Sherif, the founder of Women2Drive. Ms al-Sherif had the courage to post a YouTube video of herself driving (below). But none had been sentenced to lashing, until one Shaima Jastaina was sentenced by a religious court in Jeddah on Monday, perhaps as a reaction to celebrations by women’s groups at King Abdullah’s grant of limited voting rights.
Little is known about Ms Jastaina at this stage, but Princess Ameerah Al-Taweel said on Twitter that “Alwaleed {the Princess’ husband, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal} and I spoke with Shaima, she was happy and she said: “the King’s orders washed the fears I lived with after this unjust sentence”.
(Image: Flickr)
