Saudi women drive home a point, again
By RIMA AL-MUKHTAR & SIRAJ WAHAB | ARAB NEWS
Published: Jun 17, 2011 21:21
JEDDAH/RIYADH/ALKHOBAR: A number of women across the Kingdom went behind the wheel on Friday, responding to a Facebook campaign urging women to start driving.
The campaign, Women2Drive, called on Saudi women to begin driving their cars on June 17. Although there is no law against women driving in Saudi Arabia, they cannot obtain driver's licenses. The arrest and release of Manal Al-Sharif a few weeks ago for driving in the streets of Alkhobar did not discourage women to press the issue. The campaign was about enabling women to carry out their regular errands just as their husbands and fathers and brothers do.
"The only reason why I did this is because I believe that it's high time for a change and I don't think it would harm anyone if women drive," said one of the women who drove in Jeddah but did not want her name to be made public. "Friday was like a test day, just to see how people would react to us driving. All I can say is that it was more than normal. No one spoke to us and no one even bothered to look at us, it was like its normal for women to be behind the wheel."
Local and international encouragement and support erupted on Twitter.
"Take the wheel. Foot on the gas," said one Twitter message. Another urged: "Saudi women, start your engines!"
There is no accurate estimate of how many women heeded the call, but incidents that were reported resulted in little or no repercussions by police. The Makkah provincial police authority issued a statement in the evening saying no arrests were made.
Maha Al-Qahtani swapped places with her husband, Mohammed, and took the wheel of the family car. For the next 45 minutes, she drove through the Saudi capital.
"No one tried to stop us. No one even looked," said the 39-year-old IT consultant for the government. "We drove past police cars but had no trouble." In fact, the biggest problem for Maha was her husband sitting next to her in the family Hummer.
"He kept telling me to slow down or speed up. He was very fussy," she said.
Al-Qahtani told Arab News by phone that she wanted to make a point: "I took it directly to the streets of the capital." On Twitter, Al-Qahtani described the route she had taken around the city with her husband, saying: "I decided that the car for today is mine."
American photographer Lynsey Addario reported on Twitter that the woman she was with was stopped by six police cars.
"You would think they caught (Ayman) Al-Zawahri," she joked on her Twitter post, referring to the new Al-Qaeda leader.
However, after about 15 minutes the police let the women go, the only punishment being a traffic citation for driving without a license. Addario claims the woman displayed two driver's licenses, though neither was issued in Saudi Arabia.
In Jeddah, one woman said she had been detained by soldiers and escorted home. Others reported being ignored.
Twitter witnessed more than a hundred tweets a minute under the "#women2drive" trend page.
"I have never seen so many people tweeting about one issue, discussing the women driving matter and hoping nothing bad will happen to those women," said Abdulrahman Shata, a Saudi college student. "We men have nothing against those women who are willing to drive. We support them, and I am more than willing to teach my mother and sisters how to drive."
It was reported on Twitter that traffic police did not make arrests.
"I'm tweeting from Alkhobar police station where Manal Al-Sharif was held. I asked them and there have not been any arrest of women," tweeted Zaki Safar, Saudi blogger and women's rights activist. "I have been roaming the streets of Alkhobar and I did not see anything abnormal, it's obvious that the government gave the decision to the Saudi citizens."
Some women posted pictures online. Some admitted taking to the wheel through their tweets and Facebook accounts. There was also no way of independently verifying the accounts of various women
The Facebook page for ?Women2Drive? has been careful to point out that this is not a call for civil protest, but rather a call for women who need to drive to simply start driving. The campaign advised women to carry a valid international driver's license, to be modestly dressed, and to be preferably accompanied by a male guardian.
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