RIYADH: Authorities Saturday detained a Saudi woman after she launched a campaign against driving ban for women in the country and posted a videotape of herself behind the wheel on Facebook and YouTube to encourage others to copy her. Human rights activist Walid Abu Al-Kheir said Al-Sherief was detained by the country's religious police. Manal Al-Sherief and a group of other women started a Facebook page called “Teach me how to drive so I can protect myself,” which urges authorities to lift the driving ban. She went on a test drive in the eastern city of Khobar and later posted a video of the experience. “This is a volunteer campaign to help the girls of this country” learn to drive, Al-Sherief says in the video. “At least for times of emergency, God forbid. What if whoever is driving them gets a heart attack?” Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world to ban women — both Saudi and foreign — from driving. The prohibition forces families to hire live-in drivers, and those who cannot afford the $300 to $400 a month for a driver must rely on male relatives to drive them to work, school, shopping or the doctor. The campaigners have focused on the importance of women driving in times of emergencies and in the case of low-income families. Al-Sherief said unlike the traditional argument in Saudi Arabia that driving exposes women to sinful temptations by allowing them to mingle with policemen and mechanics, women who drive can avoid sexual harassment from their drivers and protect their “dignity.” Through Facebook, the campaigners are calling for a mass drive on June 17. To encourage women to get behind the wheel, Al-Sherief went for a drive on Friday as another activist filmed her. Posted on YouTube and Facebook, it has now garnered more than 11,000 supporters. Dressed in a headscarf and the all-encompassing black abaya all women must wear in public, Al-Sherief said not all Saudi women are “queens” who can afford to hire a driver. She extolled the virtues of driving for women, saying it can save lives, and time, as well as a woman's dignity. Al-Sherief said she learned how to drive at the age 30 in New Hampshire. “We are humiliated sometimes because we can't find a taxi to take us to work,” she said. On their Facebook page, the group says women joining the campaign should not challenge authorities if they were stopped and questioned, and should abide by the country's strict dress code. “We want to live as complete citizens, without the humiliation that we are subjected to everyday because we are tied to a driver,” the Facebook message reads. “We are not here to break the law or demonstrate or challenge the authorities, we are here to claim one of our simplest rights.”
