Women2Drive campaign
Taking up the baton from Areej Khan's 'We the Women' campaign against the fatwa on women driving in Saudi Arabia, the Women2Drive campaign has used Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter to mobilise support and take a stronger stand against the ban.
The campaign began with the help of a Saudi woman, Manal al-Sharif, who in May 2011 posted an 8-minute video online which showed herself driving while articulating a cogent rationale for why women in Saudi Arabia should be allowed to drive. In the video she highlights the impracticalities of women having to rely on male drivers, as well as the expense of hiring them or alternatively catching taxis just so that they can go about their daily lives. She also provides real examples to prove the poor logic of the law, such as road accidents caused by young boy children given the wheel because their mothers were afraid of getting caught by the religious police, the muttaween.
Al-Sharif's act of public defiance was viewed more than 700,000 times on Youtube before it was taken down after 4 days. She was subsequently imprisoned, and later released on condition that she apologise to the king. During her incarceration, however, the campaign received even more attention, and there were a number of different international online campaigns to free her.
Women2Drive then called on women who had foreign driving licenses to take al-Sharif's lead and, from June 17 2011, start driving.
Although only around 40 women drove on this day, and only a few of these posted videos of themselves online, the campaign received a good deal of media attention both locally and internationally.
Now, in an attempt to create more of a dialogue with the Saudi Arabian government on the issue, Women2Drive (now encompassed by the Right2Dignity campaign) is calling on women to apply for driving licenses and then, when their applications are inevitably rejected, to file lawsuits with the Court Administration (Grievances Board).
The campaign currently has over 20 000 followers on Twitter and the same number on Facebook.
FURTHER READING
I Am a Woman, Watch Me Drive, The Global Mail, 2012
Al Jazeera's live stream of the campaign
