MaxShimba
JF-Expert Member
- Apr 11, 2008
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RIYADH (AFP) Saudi women are set to defy a ban on driving Friday, one month after Manal al-Sharif was jailed for taking the wheel and posting footage of her rebellious act online.
The demonstrations are the climax of a two-month online campaign riding the winds of the so-called Arab spring which has spread mass revolts across the region and toppled two regimes.
But instead of organising a protest, women who have driving licences obtained abroad are being urged to get behind the wheel calmly and run their errands themselves without relying on male drivers.
The main Facebook page campaign, dubbed Women2Drive, says the action will start on Friday and keep going "until a royal decree allowing women to drive is issued."
Women in Saudi Arabia face an array of constraints, ranging from having to cover from head to toe in public and needing authorisation from a male guardian to travel, to having restricted access to jobs due to strict rules of segregation.
Due to the ban, women end up having to hire foreign drivers whose wages eat into their household incomes. If they cannot afford a driver, they have to rely on male members of their immediate families to give them a lift.
"Saudi Arabian authorities must stop treating women as second-class citizens and open the kingdom?s roads to women drivers," London-based Amnesty International said on Thursday.
More Saudi women defy drive ban - Yahoo! News
The demonstrations are the climax of a two-month online campaign riding the winds of the so-called Arab spring which has spread mass revolts across the region and toppled two regimes.
But instead of organising a protest, women who have driving licences obtained abroad are being urged to get behind the wheel calmly and run their errands themselves without relying on male drivers.
The main Facebook page campaign, dubbed Women2Drive, says the action will start on Friday and keep going "until a royal decree allowing women to drive is issued."
Women in Saudi Arabia face an array of constraints, ranging from having to cover from head to toe in public and needing authorisation from a male guardian to travel, to having restricted access to jobs due to strict rules of segregation.
Due to the ban, women end up having to hire foreign drivers whose wages eat into their household incomes. If they cannot afford a driver, they have to rely on male members of their immediate families to give them a lift.
"Saudi Arabian authorities must stop treating women as second-class citizens and open the kingdom?s roads to women drivers," London-based Amnesty International said on Thursday.
More Saudi women defy drive ban - Yahoo! News