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Latest update: 29/09/2011
- Saudi Arabia - women
Saudi king overturns lashing sentence against woman driver
A Saudi woman facing 10 lashes for driving a car has had her sentence revoked by King Abdullah, a government official said Wednesday. Saudi Arabia is the only nation in the world that bans women from driving.
By News Wires (text)
AP - Saudi King Abdullah has overturned a court ruling sentencing a Saudi woman to be lashed 10 times for defying the kingdom’s ban on female drivers, a government official said Wednesday.
The official declined to elaborate on the monarch’s decision, and spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
A Saudi court on Tuesday found Shaima Jastaina guilty of violating the driving ban, and sentenced her to 10 lashes. The verdict took Saudi women by surprise, coming just a day after King Abdullah promised to protect women’s rights and decreed that women would be allowed to participate in municipal elections in 2015. Abdullah also promised to appoint women to a currently all-male advisory body known as the Shura Council.
The harsh sentence marked the first time a legal punishment had been handed down since female activists began their campaign in June to break the taboo in this ultraconservative Muslim nation.
There are no written laws that restrict women from driving. Rather, the ban is rooted in conservative traditions and religious views that hold giving freedom of movement to women would make them vulnerable to sins.
Normally, police just stop female drivers, question them and let them go after they sign a pledge not to drive again. But dozens of women have continued to take to the roads since June in a campaign to break the taboo.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that bans women - both Saudi and foreign - from driving. The prohibition forces families to hire live-in drivers, and those who cannot afford the $300 to $400 a month for a driver must rely on male relatives to drive them to work, school, shopping or the doctor.
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Comments (2)
King Abdullah
I do wish the non Arab political chattering class would keep to their own side of their borders.
Saudi Arabia, is in a dichotomous situation, on one hand a high level of western influence and technology has been adopted and absorbed, but on the other hand much deeply ingrained religious culture and tradition is still the bedrock of it's society.
The present monarch is to my mind doing many good things, especially in enfranchising women, and this latest relaxation of the punishment that was to be doled out to one female driver, shows his willingness to bring the society into the same realm as his people already enjoy in the matter of technological advancement.
I for one do not wish to see the streets of Jeddah and Riyadh littered with the corpses of rebellious folk who are, for certain, being driven by idealogical outside interference, or fundamental, (with the emphasis on MENTAL) religious pressures.
I spent some years in the Kingdom, and saw a very high level of tolerant behaviour by the real police, whilst the so called religious police were forever out to create problems over minor misdemeanour's, as seen in their eyes.
I fully believe King Abdullah is bent towards social improvement, as much of his legislation seems to indicate. There is little to be gained by hasty actions, and his actions appear to favour a slow but defined overall betterment for the whole of the Saudi population.
It will behove the outsiders to mind their own and let things take their course. Failure to so do is likely to be utterly detrimental to that Saudi population.
Recent actions taken in Iraq and Libya, do nothing to inspire any confidence that meddling in the internal affairs of Arab states secures anything other than disaster for the average citizen.
Imagine the sentence if a
Imagine the sentence if a woman not only drove but didn't cover her face as well.
Seeing Saudi Arabia is like looking back into the Middle Ages - but they are good friends of the West.
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