Is the Drive to Modernise Saudi Arabia Taking a Wrong Turn? | Inside Story

Female activists continue to be arrested in Saudi Arabia - two in the last three days. Rights groups say Mayaa al-Zahrani was detained for her posts on social media - expressing support for Nouf Abdul-Aziz al-Jerawi, who is also locked up.

Saudi security forces have arrested 17 activists in the past months - most of them women who have long campaigned for the right to drive. That is about to happen in two weeks time.

The first driving licences have been issued before the Kingdom lifts its controversial "men-only" ban. State media has accused the arrested activists of being foreign agents. As economic, political and cultural reforms are implemented, are Saudi leaders sending mixed messages?

Presenter: Peter Dobbie | Guests: Sami Hamdi - Editor-in-Chief, International Interest; Suad Abu-Dayyeh - Equality Now; Mamdouh Salameh - Oil economist

News You Can’t Believe*! Saudi Arabia Opens to Outsiders as It Looks to the Future
THE TELEGRAPH: Gulf nation is liberalising and the West needs to alter its outdated perceptions

The Kingdom Tower in Riyadh. Photo: The Telegraph
If anything sums up the mystery of Saudi Arabia, it is the story of two women who "mingled" with members of the opposite sex.

One was Khamisa Sawadi, a 75-year-old grandmother sentenced to 40 lashes for being found in the presence of a man who was not a blood relative. It was her late husband's nephew, and he had called at her house to deliver a loaf of bread.

The other was Aisha Natto, a businesswoman from Jeddah, who was to be seen the other day "mingling" quite openly with a large number of men: Saudis, other Arabs and Westerners. Many of the women around her were not even veiled.

The very same government that has refused to intervene on behalf of Mrs Sawadi was hosting the Global Competitiveness Forum at Riyadh's Four Seasons Hotel, where Dr Natto received an award as founder of one of the country's fastest growing businesses.

The forum is one of a string of initiatives by which Saudi Arabia is trying to change its reputation as an inward-looking, conservative – and men-only – state whose economic policies revolve around deploying its oil wealth in the interests of its ruling family. >>> Richard Spencer in Riyadh | Sunday, February 07, 2010

*They’ll be telling us next that we can go skinny dipping there!

Tony Blair at the World Economic Forum on Faith and Modernization

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