Showing posts with label women driving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label women driving. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Thursday, November 07, 2013
Kuwaiti Woman Arrested in Saudi Arabia for Driving Her Diabetic Father to Hospital
A Kuwaiti woman was arrested in Saudi Arabia for driving her diabetic father to hospital, a local newspaper reported on Sunday.
The arrest came a week after a number of Saudi women protested against the country's ban on female drivers by taking to the wheel and posting pictures and videos of themselves in the act online.
The woman was driving in an area just over the border from Kuwait with her father in the passenger seat, when she was stopped by police, the English language Kuwait Times said.
Kuwaitis and Saudi locals regularly cross between the countries and communities living along the border are often a mix of both nationalities.
Citing police, the paper reported that the woman, who said her diabetic father could not drive and needed to be taken to hospital for treatment, is being held in custody pending an investigation. » | Tomas Jivanda | Monday, October 04, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Saudi Woman Talks About Driving Ban
Monday, October 28, 2013
Saudi Satirist's 'No Woman, No Drive' Goes Viral
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Saudi Activists Cancel Women 'Drive-in' Plan
Activists pressing to end Saudi Arabia's ban on women driving have dropped plans for a "drive-in" on Saturday after threats of legal action and have opted instead for an open-ended campaign.
"Out of caution and respect for the interior ministry's warnings ... we are asking women not to drive tomorrow and to change the initiative from an October 26 campaign to an open driving campaign," activist Najla al-Hariri told AFP news agency on Friday.
Several women said they had received telephone calls from the ministry, which openly warned on Thursday of measures against activists who chose to participate and asked them to promise not to drive on Saturday. » | Source: Agencies | Saturday, October 26, 2013
Dozens of Saudi Arabian Women Drive Cars on Day of Protest against Ban
More than 60 Saudi women got behind the wheels of their cars as part of a protest against a ban on women driving in the kingdom, activists have claimed.
A Saudi professor and campaigner, Aziza Youssef, said the activists have received 13 videos and another 50 phone messages from women showing or claiming they had driven, the Associated Press reported.
She said it had not been not possible to verify all of the messages. But, if the numbers are accurate, they would make Saturday's demonstration the biggest the country has ever seen against the ban.
Despite warnings by police and ultraconservatives in Saudi Arabia, there have been no reports from those who claimed to have driven of being arrested or ticketed by police. » | Staff and agencies | Saturday, October 26, 2013
Saudi Women Filmed Defying Driving Ban in October 26 Protest
Friday, October 25, 2013
Saudi Arabia's Women Plan Day of Action to Change Driving Laws
Saudi women are gearing up for a day of action to challenge the kingdom's ban on female driving, amid signs of slowly growing readiness by the authorities to consider reform in the face ofstrong opposition by the clerical establishment.
Twitter, Facebook and other social media have been used to get women drivers on the roads on Saturday in a marathon push against this unique restriction.
Activists say they have 16,600 signatures on an online petition calling for change. Efforts to publicise the issue by the "October 26 driving for women" group have been described as the best-organised social campaign ever seen in Saudi Arabia, where Twitter has millions of users and is used to circulate information about the monarchy and official corruption.
Now the mainstream press is getting involved too, a telling indication of a thaw on this issue. "It's time to end this absurd debate about women driving," wrote Dr Thuraya al-Arid in al-Jazirah newspaper. In another paper, al-Sharq al-Awsat, Mshari Al-Zaydi said: "The time has come to turn the page on the past and discuss this issue openly." Read on and comment » | Ian Black, Middle East editor | Friday, October 25, 2013
My comment:
I'm all for Saudi women having the right to drive; in fact, it is an outrage that they cannot already. But one word of caution: Saudi men, starved as they are of female contact, can be lecherous when they come into contact with women. So I have this to ask: If Saudi women were to be allowed to drive, how safe would they be driving alone on the roads of Saudi Arabia? Many will surely become targets of starved men. – © Mark
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Saudi Arabia Warns It Will Use Force If Campaigners Protest Against Female Driving Ban
Saudi women's rights activists posted online photographs and video clips of themselves defying the ban this month after some members of the Shoura Council, an influential body that advises the government, called for an end to the prohibition.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are barred from driving, but debate about the ban, once confined to the private sphere and social media, is spreading to public forums too.
The Saudi Interior Ministry said calls on social media for “banned gatherings and marches” to encourage women to drive were illegal. » | John Hall | Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Women Shouldn't Drive Because It Damages Their Ovaries and Pelvis, Warns Saudi Sheikh
A Saudi sheikh has warned women that driving could affect their ovaries and pelvises.
Women are currently banned from driving in Saudi Arabia and many have protested against the statute.
However, Sheikh Salah al-Luhaydan has warned them that their health could be at risk if they get behind the wheel.
He told Saudi news website sabq.org: '[Driving] could have a reverse physiological impact.
'Physiological science and functional medicine studied this side [and found] that it automatically affects ovaries and rolls up the pelvis.
'This is why we find for women who continuously drive cars their children are born with clinical disorders of varying degrees.'
The comments come two years after a ‘scientific’ report claimed that relaxing the ban would also see more Saudis - both men and women - turn to homosexuality and pornography.
The startling conclusions were drawn in 2011 at the Majlis al-Ifta’ al-A’ala, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, working in conjunction with Kamal Subhi, a former professor at the King Fahd University. » | Ted Thornhill | Saturday, September 28, 2013
Monday, January 23, 2012
"One woman was immediately killed and her companion who was driving the car was hospitalised after she suffered several injuries" when their four-wheel-drive vehicle overturned late on Saturday, said police spokesman Abdulaziz al-Zunaidi.
Ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive. » | Monday, January 23, 2012
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: Le roi Abdallah a annulé la condamnation d’une Saoudienne à dix coups de fouet pour avoir bravé l’interdiction faite aux femmes de conduire dans le royaume ultra-conservateur saoudien, a indiqué mercredi une princesse saoudienne.
Le roi Abdallah a annulé la condamnation d’une Saoudienne à dix coups de fouet pour avoir bravé l’interdiction faite aux femmes de conduire dans le royaume ultraconservateur saoudien, a indiqué mercredi une princesse saoudienne.
"Dieu merci, la flagellation de Sheima a été annulée. Merci à notre roi bien-aimé. Je suis sûre que toutes les femmes saoudiennes seront heureuses, je sais que je le suis", a annoncé sur Twitter la princesse Amira Tawil, épouse d’un neveu du roi et richissime homme d’affaires Walid ben Talal.
L’annulation de la condamnation a été confirmée par une source informée à Ryad. » | AFP | Mercredi 28 Septembre 2011
Related »
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Saudi king saves woman driver from 10 lashes: Saudi King Abdullah has overturned a court verdict that sentenced a Saudi woman to be lashed 10 times for defying the kingdom's ban on women driving. » | Thursday, September 29, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A Saudi woman has been sentenced to to 10 lashes for challenging a ban on women driving.
Amnesty International reported the sentence just two days after Saudi King Abdullah granted women the right to vote and run in municipal elections.
"Flogging is a cruel punishment in all circumstances but it beggars belief that the authorities in Saudi Arabia have imposed lashes on a woman apparently for merely driving a car", Philip Luther, an Amnesty regional deputy director, said in an emailed statement.
"Allowing women to vote in council elections is all well and good, but if they are still going to face being flogged for trying to exercise their right to freedom of movement, then the king's much trumpeted 'reforms' actually amount to very little," Mr Luther said. » | Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Campaigners said that four women were arrested by religious police in a single car being driven by one of them in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Tuesday morning.
Later in the day, four regular police cars also in Jeddah surrounded a vehicle being driven by another woman, in which a man, either her husband or brother, was riding as a passenger. Both were arrested and taken into custody.
On Wednesday night, the authorities had released no news about the arrests or said what would happen to the women. Manal al-Sharif, the computer security expert whose arrest for driving triggered the campaign last month, spent several days in custody before being released after signing a pledge not to repeat the offence.
The dispute about women driving has become symbolic for the demands of many women, particularly in the professional classes, for less restrictive rules on their public lives.
Two Fridays ago, a group of women launched a Facebook campaign for a lifting of the ban on women driving by taking to the wheel. Those who took part all have international licences. » | Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent | Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Today, it has been confirmed that Liechtenstein has said yes to gay marriage. This week, in Saudi Arabia women protested in order to be allowed to drive cars!
Very little more needs to be said about the state of development of the Muslim world and the Western world. In Liechtenstein, among many other countries, homosexuals are gaining rights to form lasting unions, with full rights before the law, whilst in a Muslim country such as Saudi Arabia women are still struggling for the right to drive a vehicle! If anything contrasts better the backwardness of the Middle East with the progressiveness of the West, I’d like to hear about it.
© Mark Alexander
Saturday, June 18, 2011
On 11 March, when Saudi protesters' "day of rage" did not materialise, Fouad al-Farhan, a human rights activist, tweeted:
"My fear is that the ceiling of our reformist demands will be lowered to women driving for some and combating westernisation for others."Two months later, his fears became a reality. A campaign to allow women to drive in Saudi Arabia was started on Facebook. Currently this issue has overtaken all others online, in the press and on the ground.
The movement particularly caught fire when a face for it emerged. A Saudi woman, Manal al-Sharif, came forward and posted a Youtube video advising how to go about the campaign. The plan was that starting from 17 June, Saudi women with international driving licences would begin driving their own cars rather than letting a male driver do it for them.
So far approximately 45 women have driven cars all across the kingdom in connection with the campaign and many of them have posted videos of their excursions online.
That there are women in Saudi who are distressed at the ban on their driving is well known. On the other hand the religious establishment has also been staunch in its demand to maintain the ban. Some of them have even gone so far as to call the campaign western-backed "female terrorism" and "soft terrorism". Others claimed that the campaign to allow women to drive is an Iranian/Shia conspiracy to destabilise the country. » | Eman Al Nafjan | Saturday, June 18, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
Thousands of women activists in Saudi Arabia planned to start driving on Friday in defiance of a longstanding ban that prohibits women from even getting a drivers license.
The protest action comes after a campaign launched on social media began calling for women's right to drive in the Kingdom.
Al Jazeera's Nick Toksvig reports.
FOX NEWS: Saudi Women Hit the Road in Driving Ban Protest: RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – A number of Saudi women drove cars Friday in response to calls for nationwide action to break a traditional ban unique to the ultra-conservative kingdom. » | Friday, June 17, 2011
Friday, June 03, 2011
“The issue has not so far been tabled with the council for discussion,” he said, adding that not every issue in the public domain was discussed by the council.
Explaining the mechanism of tabling issues for discussion at the council, Al-Asheikh said a motion must either come from the government, at least one member of the council or when the council itself expressed a desire to deliberate a certain issue, reported local Arabic daily Al-Jazirah.
Saudi writer and columnist Abdullah Abdul Sattar Al-Alami said he and a group of other people formally asked the council to discuss the issue of women driving.
“We sent our request in a letter sent by express mail on Feb. 8, 2011,” he said in a statement to Arab News Thursday.
Al-Alami said the request was signed by a large number of academics, literary figures, media professionals, businessmen and women, housewives, students, government employees, a former ambassador, a former undersecretary to the UN secretary-general, a deputy CEO of a big company in the Eastern Province and a prominent member of the National Society for Human Rights. » | ARAB NEWS | Friday, June 03, 2011
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
THE GUARDIAN: Manal al-Sharif, jailed after posting a YouTube video of herself driving, leaves Women2Drive movement
A Saudi Arabian woman who was jailed for driving a car has been released after nine days, having pledged to take no further part in a campaign to persuade the Saudi authorities to allow women to drive.
Manal al-Sharif, 32, was freed from the women's prison in Dammam on Monday. She was arrested after posting a video of herself driving around the eastern city of Khobar as part of the Women2Drive campaign of which she was a key organiser.
Her case attracted international attention after her lawyer said she had been charged with driving without a licence, prompting other women to do the same and provoking public debate in Saudi Arabia. Two other women associated with the campaign were also questioned by police and warned off further campaigning. One Muslim cleric even called for Sharif to be lashed.
"She wrote a pledge that she will not drive a car and after what has happened she has decided to give up the campaign and not be part of the protests," said Sharif's lawyer, Adnan al-Salah.
He said the authorities had not imposed the conditions, but Sharif had decided to make the pledge herself.
The climax of the Women2Drive campaign, a mass drive on 17 June partly inspired by demonstrations against restrictions on civil liberties across the Middle East, now appears to be in doubt.
On Tuesday, Sharif expressed "profound gratitude" to King Abdullah for ordering her release and appeared to abandon her call for women to be allowed to drive, according to a written statement published by the al-Hayat newspaper. » | Robert Booth | Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Saudi Arabia’s ‘Women2Drive’ Movement Reacts to Arrest »
FACEBOOK: Women2Drive »
TWITTER: @Women2Drive »
Related »
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)