Saudi woman steps up campaign after arrests

Dubai: In what Saudi women activists described as "escalation from the authorities", the Saudi police on Tuesday arrested five women for driving in the coastal city of Jeddah.

Four women were arrested around 10 o'clock Tuesday morning in Dorat Al Aroos Area in Jeddah by members of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

By the evening, a fifth woman was driving in downtown Jeddah when she was arrested by the Saudi police which confiscated her car, according to Saudi media reports.

While it was not clear what happened to the five women afterwards or their whereabouts, Saudi female activist Eman Al Nafjian believes they were probably released.

"The biggest possibility is that they were released, but there is no confirmation either on their release or [if] they are still being held," Nafjian told Gulf News.

But "regardless of whether they were released or not, the issue is basically an escalation" from the authorities," Nafjian, 32, who is working on her PhD in linguistics said.

Blind eye

Tuesday's arrest came nearly 10 days after Saudi women launched a nationwide campaign on June 17, urging other women to. That day, some women drove in many cities across the kingdom but none was arrested. Some women have driven in the past few days.

However, the authorities turned a blind eye until Tuesday when the five women were arrested in Jeddah.

Last Wednesday, Nafjian was in a car ahead of another car driven by women in one of the streets of Riyadh, when a citizen followed the woman driver and stopped her before complaining to the police. But the policeman released the woman and asked the complaining man to leave.

"They [police] didn't act like Tuesday. This time, they arrested the [driving] women."

According to the Saudi women activist, the arrest of four women by the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice "can't be explained".

"The women were driving cars, and this is not an unethical thing. In the second incident, a man complained to the police who arrested the driving woman [who was] sitting next to her brother. She was not driving alone," Nafjian added.

On the same day, Nafjian said a few number of women drove their cars in Riyadh and nobody detained them. Allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia has become a hot topic in the past few years with increasing calls to allow them to drive.

Estimates

According to women activists the number of women who hold "international driving licences" is estimated at 50,000, many come from the upper middle class and the upper class of the society.

"It is becoming a public demand from all sectors," Nafjian noted. "But it is the fear of change" that prevents women from driving.

While those who are advocating for women to drive say there is nothing in either law or religion that bans allowing women to drive, the other side, say the extra-conservative society is not ready yet to accept such a change.

Shaikh Abdullah Bin Mohammad Al Mutlaq, a member of the higher commission of scholars and an advisor at the royal court was quoted as saying there is nothing that stops women from driving, but the practise of not allowing them is to "avert the possible evil consequences".

Social status

The Saudi Arabic-language newspaper Al Madina quoted Shaikh Mutlaq as saying "our social status has not been completely prepared for this" and therefore, he personally doesn't allow it out of fear of undesired consequences, such as harassment of women during driving and what could develop afterwards within and between families.

At the same time, Princess Basma Bint Saudi Bint Abdul Aziz, who is the niece of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, was quoted as saying during an interview with an international media outlet Tuesday evening, that there is nothing that bans women from driving, and that "she supports allowing women to drive," noted Nafjian who played up the significance of such a statement.