Saudi king grants women right to vote
Why does that link go here?
"Saudi Monarch Grants Women Right to Vote" by Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times | September 25, 2011
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Sunday granted women the right to vote and run in future municipal elections, the biggest change in a decade for women in a puritanical kingdom that practices strict separation of the sexes, including banning women from driving.
Saudi women, who are legally subject to male chaperones for almost any public activity, hailed the royal decree as an important, if limited, step toward making them equal to their male counterparts.
They said the uprisings sweeping the Arab world for the past nine months — along with sustained domestic pressure for women’s rights and a more representative form of government — prompted the change.
“There is the element of the Arab Spring, there is the element of the strength of Saudi social media, and there is the element of Saudi women themselves, who are not silent,” said Hatoon al-Fassi, a history professor and one of the women who organized a campaign demanding the right to vote this spring. “Plus, the fact that the issue of women has turned Saudi Arabia into an international joke is another thing that brought the decision now.”
Which makes the U.N. human rights commission a joke, doesn't it?
Although political activists celebrated the change, they also cautioned how deep it would go and how fast, given that the king referred to the next election cycle, which would not be until 2015. Some women wondered aloud how they would be able to campaign for office when they were not even allowed to drive. And there is a long history of royal decrees stalling, as weak enactment collides with the bulwark of traditions ordained by the Wahhabi sect of Islam and its fierce resistance to change.
In his announcement, the king said that women would also be appointed to the Majlis Al-Shura, a consultative council that advises the monarchy on matters of public policy. But it is a toothless body that avoids matters of royal prerogative, like where the nation’s oil revenue goes....
Political participation for women is also a less contentious issue than granting them the right to drive, an idea fiercely opposed by some of the most powerful clerics and princes.
Translation: All lip service from the Saudi king.
Even as the king made the political announcement, activists said that one prominent opponent of the ban, Najla al-Hariri, was being questioned Sunday for continuing her stealth campaign of driving.
Mrs. Hariri has been vociferous in demanding the right as a single mother who cannot afford one of the ubiquitous foreign chauffeurs to ferry her children to school. In recent weeks, a woman even drove down King Fahd Expressway, the main thoroughfare through downtown Riyadh, activists said....
The rest is a total rewrite from what was in my paper.
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Related:
"National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor says this reform recognizes the “significant contributions’’ that women make in the Muslim kingdom. He says the announcement by King Abdullah will give Saudi women more ways to participate “in the decisions that affect their lives and communities.’’
Vietor says the U.S. is behind Saudi Arabia as it puts into place this change and other reforms....
And keep that oil coming.
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WTF is with the Saudi shell game, Glob?
Also see: Saudi woman to be tried over driving ban
"Saudi court orders female driver whipped" September 28, 2011|Associated Press
CAIRO - A Saudi woman was sentenced yesterday to be lashed 10 times with a whip for defying the kingdom’s prohibition on female drivers, the first time a legal punishment has been handed down for a violation of the longtime ban in the ultraconservative Muslim nation.
And the U.S. is behind you!
Normally, police just 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.
Haven't read much about those Arab Spring protests until now; what gives, Saudis making a stink over Palestine?
Making yesterday’s sentence all the more upsetting to activists is that it came just two days after King Abdullah promised to protect women’s rights and decreed that women would be allowed to participate in municipal elections in 2015.
The mixed signals highlight the challenge for Abdullah, known as a reformer, in pushing gently for change without antagonizing the powerful clergy and a conservative segment of the population.
Abdullah said he had the backing of the official clerical council. But activists saw yesterday’s sentencing as a retaliation of sorts from the hard-line Saudi religious establishment that controls the courts and oversees the intrusive religious police.
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Related: Saudi king says female driver won't be lashed
A victory for you gals!
