Saudi woman sentenced to 10 lashes for driving

A Saudi woman was sentenced to 10 lashes for defying a ban on women driving in the conservative kingdom, an activist said yesterday, while another woman was arrested in the capital.

Sheima Jastaniah was sentenced on Monday by a court in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, where she was caught driving in July, the activist said, requesting anonymity.

She said Ms Jastaniah “had refused to talk to media about her trial ... and we were shocked yesterday (Monday) that she was sentenced to 10 lashes.”

The sentence came a day after King Abdullah announced allowing women to vote and run in municipal polls, and to join the all-appointed Shura (consultative) Council, a first in a country that imposes many restrictions on women.

Meanwhile, women rights activist Madiha al-Ajrush was detained briefly yesterday in Riyadh after she was caught driving around the capital with a French freelance journalist who was working on a video documentary on women.

The journalist said she herself was set free after her consulate intervened, while Ms Ajrush was later released according to posts by the Women2Drive campaign on the group’s Twitter page.

Women2Drive said police requested a male guardian to sign a pledge that Ms Ajrush would not drive, but when no one was reached, she was told to sign herself and leave.

“Madiha is standing in the street after the officer asked her to go home in a taxi after preventing her from driving,” a post on the social network page said.

A group of defiant Saudi women got behind the wheels of their cars on June 17 in response to calls for nationwide action to break the ban.

The call spread through Facebook and Twitter was the largest mass action since November 1990, when 47 Saudi women were arrested and severely punished after demonstrating in cars.

Ms Ajrush was one of the women who took part in the 1990 protest.