Saudi women rise up against dictatorship

There are signs in Italy that the days of Silvio Berlusconi, his party’s disgusting “driving while gay” ban, his corruption, his war in Libya, etc. will soon be over.

It is to be hoped that the days of the monarchical dictatorship in Saudi Arabia, with its disgusting “driving while female” ban, its corruption, its occupation of Bahrain, etc. will soon be over as well.

This video from Saudi Arabia says about itself:

I will drive starting June 17 سأقود سيارتي بنفسي بدءً

Kindly.. spread the word of the twitter page as well:

Twitter : http://twitter.com/#!/Women2Drive

From AFP news agency:

Saudi woman defies kingdom’s ban on women driving

Sunday, May 15th, 2011 — 7:08 pm

Saudi women‘s group using Facebook, Twitter to call for June 17 protest drive aimed at lifting the ban

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — A Saudi mother said Sunday she defied a ban on women drivers in the ultra-conservative kingdom by getting behind the wheel for four days without being stopped.

Najla al-Hariri, a housewife in her mid-30s, said she drove non-stop for four days in the streets of the Red Sea city of Jeddah “to defend her belief that Saudi women should be allowed to drive.”

“I don’t fear being arrested because I am setting an example that my daughter and her friends are proud of,” Hariri told AFP, adding she was offering driving lessons for women.

Hariri said she was an experienced motorist as she had driven for five years in Egypt and another five years in Lebanon, while she could not drive in her own country.

In addition to being banned from driving, Saudi women cannot travel without authorisation from their male guardians, and are also not allowed to vote in the municipal elections, the only public polls in the absolute monarchy.

When in public, they are obliged to cover from head to toe.

Hariri ridiculed the social belief that Saudi women are treated “like queens” as they are driven around by their male relatives or drivers, saying “this is a big lie.”

“We are always under their mercy to give us a lift,” she said.

Meanwhile, a group of Saudi women have launched a Internet-based campaign calling for a nationwide protest drive on June 17 in a bid to get rid of the ban once and for all.

“On Friday June 17th, we women in Saudi [Arabia] will start driving our cars by ourselves,” says the Women2Drive page on Twitter.

The page for the event on Facebook is entitled “I will drive starting June 17” and has 1,998 supporters.

A Facebook page of Saudi men, in solidarity with the women’s anti-driving ban actions: here.

Nick Turse, TomDispatch: “If you follow the words, one Middle East comes into view; if you follow the weapons, quite another. This week, the words will take center stage. On Thursday, according to administration officials, President Obama will ‘reset’ American policy in the Middle East with a major address offering a comprehensive look at the Arab Spring, ‘a unified theory about the popular uprisings from Tunisia to Bahrain,’ and possibly a new administration approach to the region. In the meantime, all signs indicate that the Pentagon will quietly maintain antithetical policies, just as it has throughout the Obama years. Barring an unprecedented and almost inconceivable policy shift, it will continue to broker lucrative deals to send weapons systems and military equipment to Arab despots. Nothing indicates that it will be deterred from its course, whatever the president says, which means that Barack Obama’s reset rhetoric is unlikely to translate into meaningful policy change in the region”: here.

Bahrain : The first woman imprisoned for 4 years because she participated in the protests: here.

Bahrain 1st-Hand: Expelled Journalist on “A Nation Now in Fear”: here.

Exiles of the Arab Spring: Unsafe in Libya, unwanted in Europe: here.