RIYADH/WASHINGTON: Saudi King Salman on Tuesday ordered that women be allowed to drive cars, ending a conservative tradition seen by rights activists as an emblem of the Islamic kingdom’s repression of women.
The kingdom has been widely criticised for being the only country in the world that bans women from driving, despite gradual improvement on some women’s issues in recent years and ambitious government targets to increase their public role, especially in the workforce.
The royal decree ordered the formation of a ministerial body to give advice within 30 days and then implement the order by June 24, 2018, according to state news agency SPA.
It stipulated that the move must “apply and adhere to the necessary Sharia standards”, referring to Islamic law. It gave no details but said a majority of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, Saudi Arabia’s top clerical body, had approved its permissibility.
Saudi ambassador to Washington Prince Khaled bin Salman said it was “an historic and big day in our kingdom”.
“Our leadership thinks that this is the right time to do this change because currently in Saudi Arabia we have a young, dynamic, open society,” he told reporters. “There’s no wrong time to do the right thing.”
Positive reactions quickly poured in from inside the kingdom and around the world, with the US State Department welcoming the move as “a great step in the right direction”.
For more than 25 years, women activists have campaigned to be allowed to drive, defiantly taking to the road, petitioning the king and posting videos of themselves behind the wheel on social media. The protests brought them arrest and harassment.
Activist Manal al-Sherif, who was arrested in 2011 after a driving protest, took to Twitter following the king’s announcement to express her relief. “Today, the last country on earth to allow women to drive… we did it”, she wrote.
You want a statement here is one: "Saudi Arabia will never be the same again. The rain begins with a single drop" #Women2Drive
— منال مسعود الشريف (@manal_alsharif) September 26, 2017
Latifa al-Shaalan, a member of the Shura Council, an advisory body, said the decision would strengthen women’s employment in the private sector.
“This is an historic day and I cannot find the words to express my feelings and the feelings of thousands of Saudi women,” she said on Arabiya TV.
Prince Khaled, the ambassador, said women would not need permission from their guardians to get a license or have a guardian in the car and would be allowed to drive anywhere in the kingdom, including the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
Women with a license from any of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries would be allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, he added.
The position of Saudi women gradually improved under late King Abdullah and since King Salman took over in 2015, the kingdom has been opening more areas for women through the government’s modernizing reforms.
That has sparked tensions with influential clerics upon whose support the ruling family relies.