WORLD> Middle East
Saudi ban on woman drivers may be eroding
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-22 14:44

Previously, women who spoke out against the ban paid heavily. In November 1990, when US troops were in Saudi Arabia following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, some 50 women drove family cars in an anti-ban protest. They were jailed for a day, their passports were confiscated and they lost their jobs. The reaction was so harsh that lifting the ban was barely broached again until recently.

Recent media reports have highlighted women driving not as organized protests, but out of necessity or just a desire to be behind the wheel. Five women were briefly detained in separate incidents across the kingdom.

One was a 47-year-old woman detained by the religious police after they received calls from Saudis who had seen her drive repeatedly in the eastern city of Qatif, said Muhammad al-Marshoud, a member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, speaking to Al-Watan newspaper.

Another was arrested in the central city of Buraida while driving to pick up her husband from a car show, Maj. Fahd al-Habdan told Al-Hayat newspaper. She was released after her husband promised his wife would not do it again.

Last month, two women died while driving. One, in her 20s, was speeding in a family car when she hit an electricity pole in Riyadh. The second, in her 70s, died in a collision with another car in the northern region of Hail.

Supporters of ending the ban on female drivers point out that the prohibition exists neither in law nor in Islam. There is no written Saudi law banning women from driving, only fatwas, or edicts by senior clerics that are enforced by police. No major Islamic clerics outside the country call for such a ban.

Conservatives say women at the wheel create situations for sinful temptation. They argue that women drivers will be free to leave home alone, will unduly expose their eyes while driving and will interact with male strangers, such as traffic police and mechanics.