Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Supporters of women driving to launch new plan on Feb. 25

This story from the English language daily the Saudi Gazette, translated from the Arabic paper, Al-Hayat. A link to the story is here, and the text is below. It appeared on January 28, 2014.


DAMMAM — Campaigners for women’s right to drive will launch a fresh initiative on Feb. 22, Al-Hayat daily reported.

Azizah Yousif, lecturer at King Saud University in Riyadh and one of the organizers, said it is to educate the public about the legal rights of women to drive a car and to raise public awareness about the issue.

She said: “We’ll post videos of women who drove their cars in the past and dispel the wrong views detractors have spread about this issue. “We’ll show the public these views are baseless.”

Advocates of women driving will continue to shed light on this issue until the authorities realize the right of women to drive is a basic one, she stressed.

Azizah, who has been campaigning for this right since 1990, described the campaign as a continuation of the Oct. 26 initiative.

“There is no doubt that the last campaign has achieved a lot of gains for women, despite the heavy criticism from opponents,” she said.

The campaign proved that there are staunch supporters, male and female, who believe that women should be granted this right.

In June 2011, 3,500 women signed a petition demanding women should not be banned from driving. The petition was submitted to authorities.

In 2012, a campaign called “My right, my honor” brought the issue to the public consciousness again.

The Oct. 26 campaign has so far been the largest since the one in 1990 when seven Saudi women were arrested for driving cars on the streets.


1 comment:

  1. Despite that women has almost no rights in arabic countries, the courage of fighting is a great achievment. This campaign for driving right lasts for very long and I hope the ban will be removed soon.

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