Women in Saudi Arabia to vote and run in elections

[Jacaylbaro]

Women in Saudi Arabia are to be given the right to vote and run in future municipal elections, King Abdullah has announced.

 

He said they would also have the right to be appointed to the consultative Shura Council.

 

The move was welcomed by activists who have called for greater rights for women in the kingdom, which enforces a strict version of Sunni Islamic law.

 

The changes will occur after municipal polls on Thursday, the king said.

 

King Abdullah announced the move in a speech at the opening of the new term of the Shura Council - the formal body advising the king, whose members are all appointed.

 

"Because we refuse to marginalise women in society in all roles that comply with sharia, we have decided, after deliberation with our senior clerics and others... to involve women in the Shura Council as members, starting from next term," he said.

 

"Women will be able to run as candidates in the municipal election and will even have a right to vote."

 

 

READ MORE ..... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15052030

[Ms MoOns]

So the king grants women the right to vote in elections, yet they still don't have the right to drive. Does he expect them to ride a camel to the poll?

[Jacaylbaro]

loooooooooooool ,, soon they will need drivers and it is a good opportunity for Somalis

[nuune]

The rumors Somalis spread about Saudi Women not allowed was due to the fact many years back, they were driving, and the amount of gear sticks removed from cars were huge, they were not interested in driving, but in that stick of marshada ONLY, what they used for when they remove that thing is up to you to guess it, but these are just the rumors of Soomaalideena hadalka ka batey!

 

 

So the authority decided to block women from driving after many cars were dumped into scraps or were expensive to repair them.

[Jacaylbaro]

;););)

[Cawaale]

Its funny how women's participation in shoura counsel has became legitimate, halal and mostahab in one day after years of struggle.! That being said, i wonder how will they make to their respective off if they are not allowed to drive? Alsheikh and Alshabab isku mid waaye ma is tiri?

[Cawaale]

^Nuune, Haram Aleik!

[Som@li]

and what will vote do for? this fat sheikhs will be sittin on those chairs

[ailamos]

They sure took their time, but it's a positive step nonetheless.

[Axmed-InaJaad]

its waste, women dont have the brain to vote correctly. it's not good in islam to let women vote. saudi are trying to appease gaalo

[Gheelle.T]

Ms MoOns;747968 wrote:

So the king grants women the right to vote in elections, yet they still don't have the right to drive. Does he expect them to ride a camel to the poll?

Their Pakistani chauffeurs will take them there and anywhere else as they do it now. This is great leap forward for their social struggle and we should least congratulate them and the their king.

[Prometheus]

Good for the Saudis. Still, they are disappointingly behind the curve of moral progress by half a century. A few more antiquated, discriminatory laws should be consigned to the flames:

 

i)segregation of the sexes

ii)government enforcement of " religious morality" (e.g. enforcement of Hijab laws by theocratic thugs)

ii)patriarchal laws pertaining to female witness testimony and female inheritance

iv) unjust matrimonial and divorce laws

v) judicial sanction of spousal abuse (i.e. allowing a husband to lay a finger -- or was it a small miswak-- on his wife)

[Jacaylbaro]

Saudi woman driver to be lashed

 

Court in Saudi Arabia sentences woman to 10 lashes for defying the country's ban on female drivers.

 

 

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/09/201192717284798867.html