Saudi minister urges women to challenge driving
ban
Gulf News - 12 February, 2006
Saudi Arabia's ban on women driving on the roads could be
overturned by legal challenges in local courts, since there is no federal
prohibition, a top Saudi government official said on Saturday.
Speaking
in the opening moments of the Jeddah Economic Forum, Eyad Madani, Saudi minister
of culture and information, urged would-be Saudi women drivers to try to
overturn the ban.
"There is nothing in the written laws of the country
that prohibits women from applying for a driver's licence," Madani said,
responding to a question on women's voting rights from British Baroness Emma
Nicholson, a member of the House of Lords.
Madani said the Saudi central
government was powerless to drop the driving ban, since any prohibitions are
matters for local authorities. "It is up to her to take legal procedures to
knock down the municipal law in that area," Madani said.
The panel's
moderator, Saudi media analyst Hussain Shubokshi, said he was surprised the
first speaker in the Jeddah forum had already kicked up a
controversy.
"The most surprising thing in this session was that there is
no law against women driving in Saudi Arabia," Shubokshi said. "I advise all
women to apply today." Madani otherwise defended Saudi Arabia's treatment of
women, saying the kingdom recognised that women were different from men,
according to the laws of nature.
"Our approach isn't to call for
feminism, but rather femininity," Madani said. "In nature, such differences are
there and they are important." After Madani's speech, Baroness Nicholson seated
in a segregated section of the auditorium reserved for women asked the minister
whether the Saudi government would soon relax the ban on women voting or running
in political elections.
Women were permitted last year to run for seats
in local chambers of commerce. In Jeddah, two women won seats and currently sit
on the board.
Madani said it was ironic that a westerner not a Saudi
woman was clamouring for women's rights. The political atmosphere in Riyadh,
however, is opening somewhat and Madani urged women to seek more representation
on nonpolitical groups as a prelude to running for office.
"The
initiative should be taken by women activists," he
said.