Women to drive movement

Until June 2018, Saudi Arabia was the only country in which women were forbidden by law from operating motor vehicles.^[1] This restriction gave rise to the Women to Drive Movement (Arabic: قيادة المرأة في السعودية Qiyādat al-Mar’at fī as-Sa‘ūdiyyah), which advocated for women to be able to obtain a driver's license and drive cars on public roads; Saudi women have historically been denied many rights that Saudi men are entitled to.^[2] In 1990, dozens of women in Riyadh who had expressed dissent by driving were arrested and had their passports confiscated.^[3] In 2007, Saudi activist Wajeha al-Huwaider, who has also been among the leading figures of the campaign against male guardianship, was among several women who petitioned King Abdullah for the right to drive,^[4] and a film of her driving on International Women's Day in 2008 attracted international media attention.^[3][5][6]

The beginning of the Arab Spring in 2011 motivated some Saudi women,^[7][8] including al-Huwaider and Manal al-Sharif, to organise a more intensive campaign for the right of women to drive, leading to about 70 cases of women driving being documented in the latter half of June that year.^[9][10][11] In late September 2011, a Saudi woman named Shaima Jastania was sentenced to ten lashes for the offense of driving in Jeddah, but the sentence was later overturned.^[12][13] Two years later, another campaign to defy the ban set 26 October 2013 as the date for women to start driving. Three days prior, in a "rare and explicit restating of the ban", a spokesman of the Interior Ministry warned that "women in Saudi [Arabia] are banned from driving and laws will be applied against violators and those who demonstrate support."^[14] Interior Ministry employees warned leaders of the campaign individually to not partake in the 26 October driving demonstration, and police roadblocks were assembled in Riyadh to check for any female drivers.^[15]

On 26 September 2017, King Salman issued an order to allow women to drive, with new guidelines to be created and implemented by June 2018.^[16] Women to Drive campaigners were ordered not to contact media, and several were detained in May 2018, including Loujain al-Hathloul, Eman al-Nafjan, Aisha Al-Mana, Aziza al-Yousef and Madeha al-Ajroush.^[17][18] The ban was officially lifted on 24 June 2018, although many of the women's rights activists remained under arrest.^[19] As of 23 August 2018^[update], twelve remained in detention.^{[20][needs update]}