Court orders Saudi woman who defied drive ban to be flogged

Shaima Ghassaniya was found guilty of driving through the cosmopolitan west coast city of Jeddah in July.

Women2Drive, which campaigns for women to be allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, said Ms Ghassaniya has already lodged an appeal.

If that fails, she will be the first woman to be flogged for what the kingdom, alone in the world, considers an offence.

Other defiant Saudi women drivers have been detained for several days but none has been sentenced by a court.

Amnesty International condemned both the use of corporal punishment and its application for an offence which is unique to Saudi Arabia.

“Flogging is a cruel punishment in all circumstances but it beggars belief that the authorities in Saudi Arabia have imposed lashes on a woman apparently for merely driving a car,” said Philip Luther of the human rights organisation.

Yesterday’s ruling came just two days after Saudi’s King Abdullah decreed that women would be allowed to vote and run in municipal elections for the first time in the country’s history – but not until 2015.

He also promised to include women in the next all-appointed consultative Shura council two years from now.

The 87-year-old monarch is regarded as reformer, but he faces hardline opposition from Saudi’s powerful religious establishment.

“Saudi Arabia needs to go much further,” Mr Luther said. “The whole system of women’s subordination to men needs to be dismantled.”

While there is no written law forbidding women from driving, Saudi law requires citizens to use locally issued licences – never given to women.

In recent months scores of women have driven vehicles in Saudi cities in an effort to put pressure on Saudi’s absolute monarchy to change the law. Two other women are due to appear in court later this year on similar charges.The king’s proclamation this week that women could vote was widely hailed as ground-breaking move in the right direction.

But under Saudi Arabia’s strict Islamic laws, women still require a male guardian’s permission to work, travel abroad or even undergo some medical procedures. Although women are not permitted to drive in Saudi Arabia, 45,000 Saudi women have licences obtained abroad. They also purchase 40 per cent of all cars sold in the country. Women driving campaigners complain that 1.2 million foreign men, mainly from the Indian subcontinent, chauffeur Saudi women around, despite high unemployment among Saudi men.

The issue of women driving erupted in May when Manal al-Sharif, a 32-year-old single mother, was arrested after posting a video of herself driving in the eastern city of al-Khobar.

In response, more than 50 women took to the wheel to defy the ban in June, returning home to describe their experiences on Facebook and Twitter.