Defending Saudi Arabia’s law barring women from driving, Saudi historian Saleh al-Saadoon said countries where women are allowed to drive don’t care if they are raped.
‘They don’t care if they are raped on the roadside, but we do,” al-Saadoon said in an interview on Saudi Rotana Khalijiyya TV.
In the rather absurd statement, the historian justified the ban saying women could get raped if their cars break down and the ban protects them from such risks.
When asked how he knows other countries don’t care about their women being raped, al Sadoon replied, “It’s no big deal for them beyond the damage to their morale.”
“In our case, however, the problem is of a social and religious nature,” he added, according to The Huffington Post.
And that was not it. The historian went on to tell two horrified guests on the show: “Listen to me and get used to what society thinks.”
Undeterred and firm in his beliefs, al Sadoon continued to defend the ban and claimed that women in the kingdom are treated like ‘queens’ as they are driven around.
Responding to a question on whether there was a threat of women being raped by their male chauffeurs, al Sadoon said, “There is a solution, but the government officials and the clerics refuse to hear of it. The solution is to bring in female foreign chauffeurs to drive our wives.”
The monarchy is the only country in the world where women are barred from driving, a regulation that has drawn condemnation from the international community.
The grand mufti of Saudi Arabia earlier defended the ban claiming it protects society from ‘evil’.
Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, in a speech delivered in Medina, had said the issue of giving women the right to drive should not be “one of society’s major concerns”.
The kingdom’s most senior cleric had called for “the matter to be considered from the perspective of protecting society from evil” which, according to him, included letting women drive.