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Saudi woman faces flogging for driving

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Dead Man

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http://abc.com.au/news/2011-09-28/saudi-woman-faces-flogging-for-driving/3025264

A Saudi court has sentenced a woman to 10 lashes for challenging a ban on women driving in the conservative Muslim kingdom, Amnesty International said.

The sentence was reported two days after Saudi King Abdullah granted women the right to vote and run in municipal elections.

He also promised to include them in the next all-appointed consultative Shura Council in 2013.

"Flogging is a cruel punishment in all circumstances but it beggars belief that the authorities in Saudi Arabia have imposed lashes on a woman apparently for merely driving a car", Philip Luther, an Amnesty regional deputy director, said in an emailed statement.

"Allowing women to vote in council elections is all well and good, but if they are still going to face being flogged for trying to exercise their right to freedom of movement, then the king's much trumpeted 'reforms' actually amount to very little."

Two other women are also believed to be facing charges related to driving, the Amnesty statement said.

Najla Hariri, one of the women facing charges, told Reuters: "They called me in for questioning on a charge of challenging the monarch on Sunday ... I signed a pledge not to drive again, although my driving was a result of necessity not an act of defiance."

Under Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic laws, women require a male guardian's permission to work, travel abroad or undergo certain types of surgery.

There is no law banning women from driving, but there is a law requiring citizens to use locally issued licences while in the country.

Such licences are not issued to women, making it effectively illegal for them to drive.

In May, as pro-democracy protests swept the region, some women in Saudi Arabia called for the right to drive.

A campaign dubbed Women2Drive issued calls on social media such as Twitter and Facebook to challenge the ban.

Some women posted on Twitter that they drove successfully in the streets of Jeddah, Riyadh and Khobar while others said they were stopped by police who later let them go after signing a pledge not to drive again.

On May 22, Manal Alsharif, who posted a YouTube video of her driving in the streets of Khobar, was arrested. She was later released but her case proved a deterrent for many women.

"I am very upset and disturbed... I believe that this is a message which intends to tell women that they will not get all their demands," said Naila Attar, an activist and one of the women who organised the campaign Baladi (My Country), calling for Saudi women to have the right to vote.

"We are now working on a petition to the king ... asking him to stop the lashing order," she said.

Reuters
Click to expand...

So that protest worked out well...

Update:
DesertEater said:
An update: The King says no:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15102190
Click to expand...
 
rightfully so. I see women driving around these here parts and it makes me wish we could have a ban on women driving as well.
 
xbhaskarx said:
Didn't a bunch of people in that previous thread claim that it wasn't really illegal for women to drive in Saudi Arabia?
Click to expand...
I think so.

DanteFox said:
I see your bait thread and I fold.
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Just posted it as a follow up to the older thread about the protest and whether women could drive in Saudi.
 
I thought this would be about some women's face being flogged.


Needless to say I had different expectations coming in here and am extremely let down.
 
MorisUkunRasik said:
I thought this would be about some women's face being flogged.


Needless to say I had different expectations coming in here and am extremely let down.
Click to expand...

I'm sure you'll get your wish after she's sentenced.
 
xbhaskarx said:
Didn't a bunch of people in that previous thread claim that it wasn't really illegal for women to drive in Saudi Arabia?
Click to expand...
It says so in the article. It's just made impossible for them to get a license.
 
jaxword said:
That's one of our allies you're talking about, there.
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I'm not American, and who cares if they are an ally anyway? That's still a backwards and barbaric law, just like the death penalty.

Civilised societies should be trying to persuade their 'allies' to drop such practices.
 
neorej said:
rightfully so. I see women driving around these here parts and it makes me wish we could have a ban on women driving as well.
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Replace "women" with "old, senile people" and you might have a point.
 
neorej said:
rightfully so. I see women driving around these here parts and it makes me wish we could have a ban on women driving as well.
Click to expand...

yeah.. see ya
 
I don't get why these women persist in driving. Organise yourselves and change the law or something but don't keep breaking the law when the (ridiculous) consequences are well known.

Blackace said:
yeah.. see ya
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NOOOOOOOOOO! It was just a joke!

*pours one out for Neorej*
 
Sutton Dagger said:
This sort of shit whips me into a frenzy.
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I've seen lamer comments I suppose.

Its a pretty sad story but if worst comes to worst just take the lashings and move on from it. If I knew the consequences of driving a vehicle would result in something like that, I would not do it. She should have known better. I am by no means defending this horrible savage age act at all but seriously don't even put yourself in that position unless your doing it to make a point. And in her case, I hope she did do it to make a point and make a movement against this type of hate that cannot and eventually will not be tolerated by some douchebag mother fucker that I would not hesitate to shoot right in the head.
 
AgentWhiskers said:
Who in their right mind would live in a place like that?
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They apparently have to have a male consensus to go abroad too, so living in exile is probably requiring a football team.
 
so the summary of the situation is: "It's not illegal, but you can't do it legally."?

Definitely messed up. Is this really defensible?
 
AgentWhiskers said:
Geez... I wouldn't want to know what that's like. Nope, sir. Not at all.
Click to expand...
Still there huh. Why don't you go on scholarship?

--

For those who said "what did she expect?":
Definitely not a flogging. This is unprecendented.
But no surprise that the presiding judge is Abdullah al-Othaim. He's been the focal point for the conservatives' war on Jeddah (sin city in their eyes) ever since he was transferred there.
However I don't think the sentence will be carried out.
 
SmokyDave said:
I don't get why these women persist in driving. Organise yourselves and change the law or something but don't keep breaking the law when the (ridiculous) consequences are well known.
Click to expand...

Sometimes civil disobedience is the only way. If they are game for the consequences, sometimes it is the only way to affect change.

Still flogging is no laughing matter. It's horrible.

EDIt: thinking about it I would go the licence route. Keep pushing that angle until they declare that they won't issue licences to women.
 
wow, i like how they're not even straight up about it.

"of course you can drive! but you need a license to do it."
"oh and you can't get the license."
 
Vagabundo said:
Sometimes civil disobedience is the only way. If they are game for the consequences, sometimes it is the only way to affect change.

Still flogging is no laughing matter. It's horrible.
Click to expand...
Mario said:
Sometimes it works?
Click to expand...
I'm familiar with the reasons for civil disobedience but in this instance I don't feel that one person will make a difference. Hell, even the organised protest did fuck all to change the situation. There has to be a better way than simply breaking the law and getting lashed / jailed / whatever backwards shit. Maybe I'm just pessimistic.
 
astroturfing said:
such ridiculousness.

i feel for the women there.. can't be easy living in such society where men are still so fucking afraid of women.
Click to expand...

There's a lot more to it than plain chauvinism. It is highly symbolic of the Wahhabi establishment's control over the wider society. Any push back is fiercely resisted.
 
neorej said:
rightfully so. I see women driving around these here parts and it makes me wish we could have a ban on women driving as well.
Click to expand...
haha, that was quick
i wonder who issued the ban, now that dragona is gone

edit: ah, it was blackace
 
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