KSA: Royal decree allows women to drive

As debate unfolded on social media, many users shared old tweets from scholars, who had previously defended the ban, calling their views “shameful”, and asking for them to be removed.

He says the question of whether women should drive is “not religious nor a cultural issue”, but he says he understands there might be “social issues”, as not everyone in Saudi Arabia supports the changes.

King Salman ordered the reform on Tuesday night and the new law will be implemented by June 24, 2018.

The secretary-general of the United Nations has hailed Saudi Arabia’s move.

Saudi Arabia has appointed its first female spokesperson to represent the kingdom at its embassy in Washington, D.C. “An important step in the right direction“.

Women in Saudi Arabia are still limited by the country’s extremely restrictive male guardianship laws.

And with Tuesday’s victory in the bag, proving the influence and accomplishments of Saudi women activists, the #IamMyOwnGuardian hashtag and movement is certainly one to continue watching.

“The Saudi people and especially the young people are not ready for this phenomenon and it will bring a lot of misfortune”, one male Twitter user fretted.

The kingdom was the only the country in the world to bar women from driving and, for years, had garnered negative publicity internationally for detaining women who defied the ban.

“That is the real challenge to society, how they accept having women as full citizens and practise and exercise their right”, she said. Nevertheless, the world could not be much happier celebrating the historic move.

Loujain Halthloul, a Saudi activist who was imprisoned for 72 days in the winter of 2014 for attempting to cross the UAE border into Saudi Arabia in her vehicle, tweeted two words: “Thank God”.

A Saudi woman gets into a taxi at a mall in Riyadh on October 26, 2014.

He told USA reporters: “This is the right time to do the right thing”.

Lastly, it’s unclear whether women will need to get permission from their male guardians to drive. An obvious side effect of the driving ban is the fact that women have been spending a disproportionate amount of their income on paying for a driver or taxis.

Saudi’s move to allow women to drive was welcomed by the global community, and represents a significant for women activists in Saudi Arabia, and paves way for their ongoing struggle to fight for equal rights in the nation.