Saudi authorities have dealt firmly with a woman activist who defied a ban on women driving in the kingdom, fearing that this could be the spark for wider demands for reform, writes Khaled Dawoud Bowing to local and international pressure, Saudi authorities released Manal Al-Sharif, a woman activist who had brought the ban on woman driving in the conservative kingdom into the limelight, from prison late on Monday. Al-Sharif, 32, had been arrested in the city of Al-Khobar on 22 May after posting a video on YouTube in which she was seen driving a car with a friend while speaking openly against the long-standing ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia. In the widely watched video, Al-Sharif insisted that women should be treated with "dignity" in the country "and not be dependent on anyone". Al-Sharif was first detained by the so-called "morals police" while driving with her brother one day after posting the video, but then released after a few hours. Police later went to her house the same night and arrested her again, and she was then sent to prison for 10 days on charges such as "inciting women and public opinion", "driving a car without a Saudi licence" and "enabling a foreign journalist to conduct an interview without prior permission." "We are not all princesses or spoiled women who can afford to hire drivers," Al-Sharif said in her video posting, going on to complain about how the ban on women driving caused her harassment and trouble rather than the "protection" that those who support the ban claim. "I can never allow a stranger in my house, even if I can afford a driver," Al-Sharif said, adding that because of the ban on driving Saudi women had to spend hours waiting for taxis or begging the owners of taxi companies to send them one. In cases where women were forced to go out to pick up a taxi themselves because of an emergency, for example, "we get harassed by everyone. Once I started crying, and I had to call my brother to come to pick me up," Al-Sharif said. She added that many hired drivers actually cause more accidents "because they keep staring at me to see what I'm wearing, or try to listen to what I'm saying while I'm talking to a friend." Al-Sharif did not only defy the ban herself, but also called upon all Saudi women and men to join in what she called a "day of defiance" on 17 June during which women would be encouraged to drive cars across the country. "I will drive my car myself," said a slogan posted on the Facebook social-networking site in support of the protest movement. "I don't like the back seat", "driving is not against my religion", and "I want to drive because I'm no less than any other man or woman in other countries," were among other slogans accompanying a song entitled "I want to drive" in support of the campaign. Saudi authorities said Al-Sharif had been released after signing an agreement not to attempt to drive again or to speak to reporters, though this was not confirmed by her lawyer. Even before Al-Sharif's action, other Saudi women had started defying the driving ban, posting videos on the Internet similar to that of Al-Sharif. One woman from the Saudi city of Al-Qatif, who posted a video of herself driving, seemed to be on a political mission rather than simply driving a car. The woman, who did not identify herself, drove for five minutes in her neighbourhood together with her father and brother, saying, "this is only one step towards getting our demands." In her video posting, Al-Sharif also stated that the "rain starts with a drop", implying that her demands as a Saudi woman were not limited to lifting the ban on driving. Such statements are probably the main reason behind the swift crackdown on Al-Sharif and the threats made by the Saudi authorities against similar moves by other women or their male supporters. With popular revolts rocking other Arab countries, Saudi Arabia has been nervous that it could be next. Neither men nor women have the right to vote in the kingdom, and there are no institutions that supervise either the monarchy or other government institutions. Protests broke out in Saudi Arabia shortly after the revolutions that removed dictators in Tunisia and Egypt earlier this year, including in cities in the east of the country where members of the Shia minority live. Saudi security forces quickly suppressed the protests, with Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz offering generous cash subsidies for Saudi citizens estimated at over $30 billion in moves that may have been designed to quell possible future protests. Recent reports have also indicated that Saudi Arabia is providing financial and diplomatic support to several Arab countries in a bid to prevent further revolts that could remove traditional allies and to limit Iran's influence. Saudi Arabia has gone as far as inviting Jordan and Morocco to join the Gulf Cooperation Council, an exclusive gathering of oil-rich nations, in what has now been dubbed "the club of monarchies". The move was met with surprise in the Arab world, given that Morocco is a long way from the Arab Gulf region and that it has little in common with the Gulf nations. Meanwhile, Saudi women's attempts to defy the driving ban have been met with sharp criticism from the conservative religious establishment in Saudi Arabia, several prominent clerics issued rulings confirming that the ban should stay in place. Countering the "Women 2 Drive" page on Facebook, conservative Saudis have started other pages calling for the "beating up of women who dare to drive in Saudi Arabia." One religious scholar, Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Al-Fawzan, told his followers that "if women are allowed to drive, the next steps would be to allow women to walk in the streets without a veil, to mix in public places with men, and finally to travel without permission." King Abdullah promised to introduce reforms to the kingdom after becoming monarch in 2005, including the possibility of reviewing the ban on driving for women. However, threats by extremist groups and the volatile situation in the region may have led the 85-year- old king to reconsider his priorities.
