King Abdallah Pardons Lashing Sentence for Shaima

King Abdallah pardoned the woman driver who was recently sentenced to ten lashes for driving illegally. Her name is Shaima Ghassaniyah, but also appears with the last name Jastaina as well as Jastania. So far, I haven't seen an official confirmation of this ruling, and it hasn't shown up in the Arab News yet, which is interesting. I'm posting it as news ----- since it's all over the wires.  (Note: in our post of March 15, 2011 (Prince Khaled is For Women Driving), a woman named Shaima Jastania attended the 2011 Jeddah Economic Forum and asked the Governor of the Western (Mecca) Province, Prince Khalid bin Faisal bin Abdul Aziz, whether he agreed with the driving ban. I assume she is the same woman.

The text of the story from the Guardian is below, and a link to the story is here.

Saudi woman driver saved from lashing by King Abdullah

A Saudi woman sentenced to be lashed 10 times for defying the country's ban on female drivers has had her punishment overturned by the king.

The woman, named as Shaima Jastaina and believed to be in her 30s, was found guilty of driving without permission in Jeddah in July. Her case was the first in which a legal punishment was handed down for a violation of the ban in the ultraconservative Muslim nation.

Although there has been no official confirmation of the ruling, Princess Amira al-Taweel, wife of the Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, tweeted: "Thank God, the lashing of [Shaima] is cancelled. Thanks to our beloved king. I am sure all Saudi women will be so happy, I know I am."

She later added that she and her husband had spoken to Shaima, who told them: "The king's orders washed the fears I lived with after this unjust sentence."

Jastaina was sentenced on Monday — a day after King Abdullah promised to protect women's rights and said women would be allowed to participate in municipal elections in 2015. He also promised to appoint women to the all-male Shura council advisory body.

The moves underline the challenge facing Abdullah, known as a reformer, as he pushes gently for change while trying not to antagonise the powerful clergy and a conservative segment of the population.

Although there are no written laws that restrict women from driving, the prohibition is rooted in conservative traditions and religious views that hold that giving freedom of movement to women would make them vulnerable to sins.

Police usually stop female drivers, question them and let them go after they sign a pledge not to drive again. But dozens of women have continued to take to the roads since June in a campaign to break the taboo.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that bans women — both Saudi and foreign — from driving. The prohibition forces families to hire live-in drivers, and those who cannot afford the $300-$400 (£190-£255) a month for a driver must rely on male relatives to drive them.

• © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Mother killed in a car accident - with her daughter at the wheel

Emirates 24/7 reports today that an elderly Saudi woman was killed in a car accident, noting that her daughter was at the wheel illegally. The woman driving was taking her mother to the hospital for medical treatment in Aflaj (a rural area 200 miles south of the capital city Riyadh) when one of the tires blew. Though women driving in Saudi cities is uncommon, women are known to drive in rural areas.

The text of the story is below, and the link to it on-line is here.

Mum killed in car driven by daughter in Saudi - September 28, 2011

An old Saudi woman was killed in a road accident involving a car driven by her daughter in defiance of a long-standing ban on driving by women in the conservative Muslim Gulf Kingdom, press reports said on Wednesday.

The girl was driving her sick mother for treatment at a hospital in the central town of Aflaj when the car overturned on the road because of a tyre blast.

“The mother was killed in the accident, her daughter, in her 20s, was injured and taken to hospital,” Sharq daily said.

Saudi women driving on Twitter

If you are active on Twitter, you can check out the lively discussion on the case of Shaima Ghassaniyah being sentenced to ten lashes for driving in Saudi Arabia. The 'Twitterverse' is just hopping with comments today.

Check out: the discussion on:

#Women2Drive
#SaudiWomenSpring
#KingdomofSaudiMen
#Right2Dignity
#SaudiWomen

This sentence seems particularly embarrassing given the fact that the King wants to stop the marginalization of women in Saudi society. He's just given them the right to vote in municipal elections and will be appointing women to his Consultative Council, known as the Shoura.

The King has been known to step in and commute capricious sentences, and I believe he will do so in this case. This is a good example of the independence of the Saudi judiciary, which can be a good thing in theory, but often it's not.

Shoura council reconsidering women driving issue

The Saudi Gazette reports that the Saudi consultative council, known as the Shoura, appointed by the King, is reconsidering the women driving issue. A link to the story is here and the text is below. This subject has come to the fore, in response to the growing movement of Saudi men and women who are asking for women's right to drive, as well as the questions that have followed the King's recent announcement about women's right to vote and women's imminent appointment as full members of the Shoura.

Shoura reconsidering women driving issue

Al-Khobar — In view of the popular campaign for allowing women to drive in the Kingdom, the Shoura Council is thoroughly reconsidering the issue, said Dr. Misha’l Mamdooh Al-Ali, Chairman of the Council’s Human Rights Committee.

Allowing women to drive does not conflict with Islamic law, he said, adding that the majority of people oppose women driving based on tradition and customs. “It has nothing to do with religion,” Al-Ali was quoted by Al-Hayat Arabic daily as saying.

Many Saudi women say their driving does not contradict the Shariah and there is no religious reason that prevents them from driving, he added. He said these women have appointed a lawyer to follow up the issue at the Shoura Council.

“The human rights committee is waiting for the Chairman of the Shoura Council to study the case and refer it back to the committee,” he said.

“The Shoura Council will study any issue put on the table as long as it is in the interest of citizens and residents,” he said. The Shoura Council will allow the lawyer and his female clients to attend the session when the issue is discussed, he said.

Dr. Al-Ali hoped that Sheikh Abdul Aziz Aal Al-Sheikh, the Grand Mufti of the Kingdom, and other senior Ulema (scholars) would give their opinion on the issue. “We will comply with what they say because they know better and know what is best for us.”

The Shoura Council members are studying the issue thoroughly from different social, economic and security aspects, he said.

One important goal that his committee seeks to achieve is to ensure that there are female police so that female drivers are treated with respect, he explained.

Woman to get ten lashes for driving

The AP reports via USA Today here, that Saudi woman Shaima Ghassaniyyah, caught driving illegally in Saudi Arabia, is to receive ten lashes for driving. The link to the story is here and the text appears below.

Saudi woman sentenced to 10 lashes for defying ban on female drivers

by Douglas Stanglin (September 27, 2011)

A Saudi court has sentenced a Saudi woman with 10 lashes for defying the kingdom's ban on women driving, Saudi actvists tell the Associated Press.

Activist Samar Badawi says Shaima Ghassaniya was found guilty of driving without the government's permission in Jeddah in July. No laws prohibit women from driving, but conservative religious edicts have banned it.

Today's verdict is the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia. Other women were detained for several days, but had not been sentenced by a court, the AP reports.

The BBC reports that Women2drive, which campaigns for women to be allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, says she has already appealed the conviction.

The BBC says two other women are due to appear in court later this year on similar charges.
Najalaa Harriri, who is also facing court for driving, tells the AP that she needed to drive to take better care of her children.

This weekend, Saudi King Abdullah announced, for the first time, that women have the right to vote and run in the country's 2015 local elections.

Saudi Authorities to try Najla Hariri for Driving

The Associated Press is reporting today (9/26/2011) that authorities in Jeddah are going to bring housewife and mother Najla Hariri to trial for driving illegally. This is one day after King Abdallah announced that women would have the right to vote in the next municipal elections four years from now, and that he would begin appointing women to sit on his Consultative Council next year.

The text of the story is below, and a link to the piece on ABC News' website is here
They managed to mangle Ms. Hariri's name, both first and last.

Stay tuned for more updates.

From AP: Saudi Authorities to Try Woman for Driving

A Saudi lawyer and rights advocates say authorities will bring a Saudi activist to trial for defying the kingdom's female driving ban.

The attorney, Waleed Aboul Khair, says Najalaa Harrir was summoned for questioning by the prosecutor general in the port city of Jeddah on Sunday, the same day that Saudi King Abdullah introduced reforms giving women the right to vote and run in local elections four years from now.
Harrir is one of dozens of Saudi female activists behind a campaign called "My Right, My Dignity" that is aimed at ending discrimination against women, including the driving ban, in the ultraconservative Islamic country.

Harrir recently appeared in a TV show while driving her car in Jeddah.

Women will join King's Shura Council and gain right to vote

King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia made history yet again by announcing that women will be allowed to vote and run for office in the Kingdom's municipal elections...and that they will be appointed as full members to the Kingdom's Consultative Shura Council. Though the issue of women driving isn't dealt with now, I believe we must look at this historic step with the 'glass is half full' attitude. Now that women will be on the Shura Council they will be able to discuss the women driving issue and bring forth other major women's rights issues such as the 'guardianship' law question.

The media is reporting this all over - I'm including the LA Times story - it seems the most nuanced and quotes Lubna Hussain. The story is pasted in below and a link to it is  here

Reforms will allow women to vote but not drive - Jeffrey Fleishman

REPORTING FROM CAIRO -- King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia surprised his ultraconservative nation Sunday by announcing bold reforms that for the first time give women the right to vote, run for local office and serve on the Shura Council, the king’s advisory board.

The measures by an aging monarch who has battled Islamic hard-liners for years will marginally improve the standing of women in a country that still forbids them from driving or leaving the house without their faces covered. The moves appear likely to enrage religious conservatives while serving to advance at least a veneer of change in one of the world’s most repressive states.

“Because we refuse to marginalize women in society in all roles that comply with sharia [Islamic law], we have decided ... to involve women in the Shura Council as members, starting from the next term,” the king said in a five-minute speech to his advisors.

He added: “Women will be able to run as candidates” in the 2015 municipal election “and will even have a right to vote.”

The announcement suggests that the ailing 87-year-old king seeks a legacy as a reformer, despite making only modest inroads on human rights. Abdullah built the country’s first coeducational university and has granted 120,000 scholarships to Saudi students, many of them women, to study outside the country. Each was opposed by clerics and religious ultraconservatives in the royal family. Allowing women to vote is “hugely significant,” said Lubna Hussain, a Saudi writer. “The king is implementing the reform promises he made when he became leader. It shows he is not willing to pander to religious fundamentalists ... who are quite weakened and don’t seem to have the voice they used to.”

The new rights for women come as Saudi Arabia has bristled at demands for political freedoms that have spirited rebellions across the Arab world and toppled such longtime allies of the king as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. When rumblings of revolt echoed in Saudi Arabia, the government, whose security forces are omnipresent, promised $130 billion in salary raises and spending for social and religious programs.

Such largesse and attempts at modernization have kept Abdullah popular even while challenges to the royal family have been quickly crushed. Saudi dissidents and human rights groups have condemned the government for crackdowns that have occasionally damaged the king’s image and led to criticism that his family’s reliance on religious conservatives to stay in power makes him too cautious a reformer.

The king is the counterbalance to influential anti-reformist forces, including Prince Nayef ibn Abdulaziz, the Saudi interior minister, who many believe may succeed Abdullah. Nayef is sympathetic to fundamentalist Wahhabi clerics who uphold the segregation of sexes and have resisted the monarch’s attempts at modest reforms to ease religion's grip on schools, courts and other institutions.

Yet discriminatory laws, such as preventing women from driving, have become an international embarrassment for the kingdom, a key U.S. ally that relies on oil wealth to expand its diplomatic stature. A number of women were arrested over the summer for defying the driving ban. Analysts predicted that by allowing women to vote the king has opened the possibility for wider rights debates.

But others said the latest reforms were diversions that did little to change the plight of women in a country where they can be beheaded for adultery and cannot travel abroad without the permission of a male guardian.

“It’s a mixed feeling. On one hand he opens the door for her and on the other hand she is still banned from driving,” said Mohammad Fahd Qahtani, a college professor and human rights advocate. “It doesn’t save her from horrible treatment by government agencies and the courts. It’s a symbolic gesture but it is in no way enough to improve the lives of women.”

He added: “These rights to vote are still, if you see how it’s worded, are contingent on Islamic jurisprudence. So we'll have to see in coming years what happens. The devil could be in the details. But maybe it’ll get some international praise for the regime.”

Sunday’s announcements “represent an important step forward in expanding the rights of women in Saudi Arabia, and we support King Abdullah and the people of Saudi Arabia as they undertake these and other reforms,” said Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council.

The change will not alter the Saudi power structure. Municipal councils have little authority and only half their members are elected. The Shura Council, a body akin to a parliament but with no legislative power, advises the king on economic, social and international affairs.

But liberals and activists believe that even a little nudge forward in the kingdom is significant.

“It’s almost like a watershed,” said Hussain, who has written eloquently over the years on women’s rights. “You’ll now have women in [the Shura Council] taking up women’s causes. Before it was men talking for us. It’s quite revolutionary and it will open up a Pandora’s box.”