Saudi women’s victory on driving, struggle continues

This video says about itself:

A Saudi woman who dared to drive | Manal al-Sharif

14 June 2013

There’s no actual law against women driving in Saudi Arabia. But it’s forbidden. Two years ago, Manal al-Sharif decided to encourage women to drive by doing so — and filming herself for YouTube. Hear her story of what happened next.

Ms Manal al-Sharif and other Saudi women were jailed and flogged for driving cars. Their courageous struggle inspired solidarity all over the world; though not from Hillary Clinton, then United States Secretary of State.

Now, the Saudi absolute monarchy has announced that from June next year on women will be allowed to get driving licences. Proving that even the most cruel dictatorships sometimes have to make concessions to mass popular struggles.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Al Sharif said she was pleased with the disappearance of “one of the most draconian laws

not a law; just oppression in practice

in modern times”, and that she will continue the struggle for equal rights for women. Because there’s still a long way to go …

The activists will now focus on male custody of women. According to Saudi law, women need permission from their husband, father or brother for the simplest things. Requesting a passport, for example, or a scholarship for a study abroad, but also to marry women must get permission from a male relative.

The right to get a driving license is only the beginning of the struggle to abolish long-established unjust laws, al-Sharif says now. “We will continue to act against male custody which imprisons women in this country. We ask for nothing less than fully equal rights for women.”

Eight things women still can’t do in Saudi Arabia: here.

Saudi Arabia lifting the driving ban is little more than a glitzy distraction from its continued geopolitical problems. King Salman signs the decree; but the world knows that the Crown Prince is behind all this, just as he was behind the ambitious new economic plan to move away from the world’s oil ‘greed’, which has even now been watered down by Saudi officials, its ambitions extended in time or abandoned altogether: here.

The Biggest Impediment to Saudi Women Was Never the Driving Ban: here.