Riyadh (AsiaNews) – A prince wants to start a (forbidden) political party, a petition to allow women the right to drive and two women react with spray to the oppression of religious police. Signs of a growing desire for freedom in the ultra conservative Saudi Arabia.
A “reaction to the policy of 'exclusion' in the decision-making process” in the country is what motivated prince Talal bin Abdul Aziz, step brother of King Abdullah, to request permission to found a political party. The news reported on Middle east online and significantly ignored by Saudi press, is that the 70 year old prince father of the billionaire Al-Walid, said that the birth of a party – banned in Saudi Arabia – is part of a “future vision” of the country which depends on the king and which would “play a vital role in achieving important reforms”.
Moreover King Abdallah, absolute sovereign, was presented with a petition, signed by over one thousand people, including some men, that seeks the lifting of a ban on women drivers. “The time has come to give women their natural right to drive a car, a right denied for purely social, and unjustified, reasons," the petition says.
The petition also underlines that Islam does not carry prohibitions for women such as the driving ban and that already women drive in “rural villages” as well as “women inside some big residential compounds although there are public means of transport available there”.
The reaction of two women to the two agents of the religious police (the much feared muttawa) yesterday in eastern Alkhobar, is finding mass coverage in press throughout the region as well as in Saudi Arabia itself. The muttawa control that women are “correctly covered” not wearing make up and that the two sexes do not mix, that shops close during times of prayer, and that men attend the mosque.
Two agents, reports Arab News, accused the girls of visibly wearing make up and wanted to bring them to the local branch of the Commission for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, the official name of the muttawa. But the girls reacted, accusing the agents of “terrorism”. One sprayed the men with a tearing irritant, while the other filmed the entire episode on a video camera. In the end the girls were stopped and given a “warning”.
