Saudi Arabia’s Radical King Gives Women the Right to Vote

Posted on Sep 25, 2011

AP / Hassan Ammar

Only 118 years after New Zealand kicked off this dangerous trend, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has decided to allow women to vote and run in municipal elections as soon as 2015.

Troubled by the king’s extremism, some Saudis are concerned that women will be stripped of the right to be escorted at all times in public by a male relative or the right to not be allowed to drive.

Despite King Abdullah’s radical feminism, female Saudi lawyers still have the protections necessary to never argue in court and Saudi women in need of underwear have the freedom to buy it exclusively from men.

Beheadings of criminals convicted of the well-documented crime of sorcery should not be affected by the king’s liberal agenda.  —PZS

New York Times:

Political participation for women is also a less contentious issue than granting them the right to drive, an idea fiercely opposed by some of the most powerful clerics and princes. Even as the king made the political announcement, activists said that one prominent opponent of the ban, Najla al-Hariri, was being questioned Sunday for continuing her stealth campaign of driving.

Mrs. Hariri has been vociferous in demanding the right as a single mother who cannot afford one of the ubiquitous foreign chauffeurs to ferry her children to school. In recent weeks, a woman even drove down King Fahd Expressway, the main thoroughfare through downtown Riyadh, activists said.

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