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Feb 07 2012

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WSJ(2/7) Saudi Women, in a Shift, Sue for Right to Drive

   (From THE WALL STREET JOURNAL) 
   By Ellen Knickmeyer 

The legal push is a shift by activists after years of simply appealing to Saudi leaders for permission to drive and, more rarely, taking to the roads in small numbers to test enforcement.

Since mid-2011, the limited push to win women the right to drive has been one of the few fronts in a country largely bypassed by the Arab Spring activist movements of the past year.

But with no breakthroughs in a campaign for the right to drive begun by Saudi women during the first Gulf war in the early 1990s, it was time to change tactics, said Ms. Sharif, a 32-year-old Saudi computer consultant.

Government officials contacted about the case didn't respond to requests to comment.

No written law bans women from driving in Saudi Arabia, and King Abdullah has said he sees nothing wrong with women driving. But in a country founded by followers of the strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, women are uniformly denied driver's licenses and risk sentences of fines, jail or floggings for driving.

Advocates of a ban say it is in line with stringent interpretations of the Quran that discourage the mixing of unrelated women and men.

A report prepared by a Saudi academic in December for an advisory body to the king said allowing women the freedom to drive would lead to widespread loss of virginity among unmarried Saudi women.

Advocates of the right to drive call the de facto ban a crippling and costly restriction on millions of Saudi women, forcing them to pay thousands of dollars a year for a driver, depend on male relatives for rides, or simply stay at home.

On the day Ms. Sharif started her campaign last year, a Saudi court jailed her for more than a week for driving and having herself videotaped while driving.

On the day of her arrest, Ms. Sharif filed an application for a license, she said. Saudi officials variously rejected or ignored her application. In November, Ms. Sharif filed a lawsuit challenging Saudi officials' refusal to give her a license.

Heeding her lawyer's warnings for her security, she waited until another Saudi woman, Samar Badawi, this weekend disclosed her own lawsuit.

In a country where women largely stay behind the scenes, Ms. Sharif spoke Sunday on CNN and the British Broadcasting Corp. to announce her court case and state her reasons. Some in the campaign call such international media exposure crucial to protecting women drivers from further jail terms or other punishments.

Ms. Sharif's lawyer, AbdulRahman Allahim, said Monday that a court that hears citizen complaints against the government, the Board of Grievances, had agreed to hear the case. The court has also scheduled Ms. Badawi's case, according to activists.

Prosecution of women drivers is typically handled elsewhere, in religious courts. In a possible shift that could improve the chances of women seeking the right to drive, among other issues, a local newspaper reported on Saturday that Saudi authorities would create a new commission to handle social issues such as women driving.

While the government hasn't confirmed the report, the suggestion that cases of women driving might be moved out of religious courts electrified both sides of the debate.

"It's huge," said Eman al Nafjan, a Riyadh academic and blogger, saying embarrassment over international coverage of the driving issue may have prompted the proposal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

07-02-12 0418GMT