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Saudi Women Want to Drive

Posted Sep 18, 07 1:13 PM CDT in Arts & Living,  World 

(Newser) – A group of Saudi women is trying to regain a “stolen right”: driving. The group will deliver a petition to King Abdullah this week demanding the right to get behind the wheel. But prospects for lifting the world's only ban on female drivers are cloudy, the BBC reports, because of concerns about women mixing freely with men.

Nothing in Islamic law or the Saudi constitution prohibits women from driving. The ban only became law in 1990, although it was unofficially in place long before that. King Abdullah—who one Western diplomat described to the Telegraph as "about as liberal as an 80-year-old Saudi gets"—has said he thinks women will someday drive in his kingdom.

Source BBC

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A woman gets in a taxi in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, Monday, Sept. 17, 2007. For the first time ever, a group of women in the only country that bans female drivers have formed a committee to lobby for the...   (Associated Press)
Le Caire. (PAR80198)   (Magnum Photos)
Two women crosses the street in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, Monday, Sept. 17, 2007. For the first time ever, a group of women in the only country that bans female drivers have formed a committee to lobby for...   (Associated Press)
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Saudi Arabia  • driving  • women's rights  • King Abdullah  • Islamic law


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