Manama: Police in Saudi Arabia said that they have arrested 12 women for challenging the ban on driving.
Saudi activist Manal Al Sharif, who now lives in Dubai, flashes the sign for victory as she drives her car.
Five of the women drivers were apprehended in the capital Riyadh, five in the Eastern Province — three in Ahsa and two in Dammam — and two in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, the police said, local daily Al Eqtisadiya reported on Sunday.
The two women in Jeddah were 50 years old and one of them was accompanied by her 14-year-old son, they added.
Although there is no specific law in Saudi Arabia that bans women from driving, women are not issued licences. An online petition campaign was launched in September to encourage women to drive throughout the kingdom on October 26.
The interior ministry last week warned it would adopt a zero tolerance policy towards those who challenged the ban.
Activists said that the campaign to allow women to drive “has succeeded”, but insisted that they never called for the use of specific schools in Riyadh as the point of assembly for women to start their cars, the daily said.
They said that the call emanated from groups who wanted to defeat the purpose of the campaign and create the conditions for confrontations with the public order.
Policemen at a checkpoint set up early morning near the schools inspected all the cars with tinted glasses to ensure that they were not driven by women.
“The traffic violations that we booked in Riyadh were normal and related to not wearing the seat belt or over-tinted windows,” Ali Al Dabaikhi, the head of traffic in Riyadh, said.
“We are not concerned with women drivers because that is not within our prerogatives,” he said, quoted by the daily.
Eman Al Jafnan, an activist who championed allowing women to drive, said that more than 50 women were able to drive cars on Saturday, Al Eqtisadiya said.
“This is a movement that will continue,” she said.
An interior ministry official said that security officers were tracking the women who broke the rules and posted video clips of their driving on social networks, saying that the evidence could be used against them.
Fawaz Al Miman, the assistant traffic spokesman for the Riyadh traffic police, said that they had the right to summon the women who posted their driving video clips and ask them to sign pledges not to repeat the action.
The car could be impounded if the woman drove it again, he said.
“At the same time, we do not rule out the possibility that the video clips were old ones and not filmed on Saturday,” he said.
Several women said that they reversed their decision to drive on Saturday after they realised that their action would mean that they were challenging the authorities.(gulfnews.com)
