Saudi women lobby king for driving right

[donsu]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070917/ap_on_re_mi_ea/saudi_women_drivers;_ylt=AvwBwbjJnXjtbk_ecptDTuOs0NUE


For the first time ever, a group of women in the only country that bans female drivers have formed a committee to lobby for the right to get behind the wheel, and they plan to petition King Abdullah in the next few days for the privilege.

The government is unlikely to respond because the issue remains so highly sensitive and divisive. But committee members say their petition will at least highlight what many Saudis — both men and women — consider a "stolen" right.

"We would like to remind officials that this is, as many have said, a social and not a religious or political issue," said Fowziyyah al-Oyouni, a founding member of the Committee of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars. "And since it's a social issue, we have the right to lobby for it."

-snip-

Women tried to defy the ban once and paid heavily for it. In November 1990, when U.S. troops were in Saudi Arabia following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, some 50 women got behind the wheel and drove family cars. They were jailed for one day, their passports were confiscated and they lost their jobs.

(brave women are found everywhere)

The petition, circulated electronically for signatures, has received a lot of support from within the kingdom, from both men and women, as well as from outside Saudi Arabia, al-Oyouni said. "This is a right that has been delayed for too long."
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wishing them well

[Captain Hilts]

1. Custom dictated that women were rarely seen driving cars when I lived in Moscow in 1993.

perhaps it's different now, but when I lived there, you practically NEVER saw a woman driving.

[donsu]

2. interesting - didn't know that

where else in the world do women not drive, or cannot drive or rarely drive?