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DUBAI - At least five Saudi women have been arrested and accused of defying the men-only driving rule in the ultra-conservative Arab kingdom, an activist said Wednesday.
The detentions are the first major backlash by the Riyadh authorities since a campaign was launched by Saudi women nearly two weeks ago to challenge restrictions on them driving.
Dozens of women have since driven through the capital, Riyadh, and other cities.
Saudi-based rights activist Eman al-Nafjan told The Associated Press that police detained a woman in Jiddah on the Red Sea coast. Four more accused of driving were later detained in the city, al-Nafjan said. There had been no new information on the status of the arrested women.
"This is the first big pushback from the authorities, it seems," al-Nafjan said. "We aren't sure what it means or whether this is the start of a harder line by the government against the campaign."
DRIVING BAN
About 40 Saudi women got behind the wheel earlier in June, 2011, saying they were launching a campaign to lift the restrictions in the Muslim country where women can only appear in public when escorted by a male relative.
Saudi Arabia has no written law barring women from driving - only fatwas, religious edicts made by senior clerics under a strict brand of Islam called as Wahabism. The group, Saudi Women for Driving, said their campaign was inspired by the Arab uprisings against autocratic rulers and appealed for high-level Western backing.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lent her support to the campaign against the ban on female drivers in the Islamic kingdom, a close US ally. She praised the protesters but stressed that they werer acting on their own on behalf of their own rights and not at the behest of outsiders such as herself.
The Saudi protests have put the Obama administration, and Clinton in particular, in a difficult position. While Clinton and many other top US officials personally find the driving ban offensive and contrary to a modern and just society, the administration is increasingly reliant on Saudi authorities to provide stability and continuity in the Middle East and Gulf amid uprisings taking place across the Arab world.
The detentions are the first major backlash by the Riyadh authorities since a campaign was launched by Saudi women nearly two weeks ago to challenge restrictions on them driving.
Dozens of women have since driven through the capital, Riyadh, and other cities.
Saudi-based rights activist Eman al-Nafjan told The Associated Press that police detained a woman in Jiddah on the Red Sea coast. Four more accused of driving were later detained in the city, al-Nafjan said. There had been no new information on the status of the arrested women.
"This is the first big pushback from the authorities, it seems," al-Nafjan said. "We aren't sure what it means or whether this is the start of a harder line by the government against the campaign."
DRIVING BAN
About 40 Saudi women got behind the wheel earlier in June, 2011, saying they were launching a campaign to lift the restrictions in the Muslim country where women can only appear in public when escorted by a male relative.
Saudi Arabia has no written law barring women from driving - only fatwas, religious edicts made by senior clerics under a strict brand of Islam called as Wahabism. The group, Saudi Women for Driving, said their campaign was inspired by the Arab uprisings against autocratic rulers and appealed for high-level Western backing.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lent her support to the campaign against the ban on female drivers in the Islamic kingdom, a close US ally. She praised the protesters but stressed that they werer acting on their own on behalf of their own rights and not at the behest of outsiders such as herself.
The Saudi protests have put the Obama administration, and Clinton in particular, in a difficult position. While Clinton and many other top US officials personally find the driving ban offensive and contrary to a modern and just society, the administration is increasingly reliant on Saudi authorities to provide stability and continuity in the Middle East and Gulf amid uprisings taking place across the Arab world.
