Saudi women are set to defy a ban on driving, a month after Manal al-Sharif was jailed for taking the wheel and posting footage of her rebellious act online.
Friday’s demonstrations are the climax of a two-month online campaign riding the wave of mass revolts across the Middle East that toppled two regimes.
But instead of a protest, women with a driver’s licence obtained abroad are being urged to get behind the wheel calmly and run their errands themselves without relying on male drivers.
The Facebook campaign Women2Drive says the action will keep going “until a royal decree allowing women to drive is issued”.
Women in Saudi Arabia face an array of constraints, 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 one they have to rely on male members of their immediate families for a lift. - AFP