Dubai: A Saudi woman activist Loujain Al Hathloul has single-handedly challenged her country’s driving ban on woman, moving the media to devote it wide coverage.
In her brave action, Loujain Al Hathloul, who hails from the Saudi capital Riyadh and holds a UAE driving licence, spent more than one day on UAE-Saudi borders in a bid to break the Kingdom’s rule, while she was coming from UAE, and is still stranded at the time of publishing this report.
‘I have spent 24 hours on Saudi borders, and officers had neither given me back my passport, nor had they let me go ahead,’ she tweeted, adding that there was complete silence even from the interior ministry.
Loujain on Sunday tweeted to October 26, a group campaigning for women’s right to drive. She said she was heading for Saudi borders while she was behind the wheel.
Moment laters, and while she was on the road, she tweeted saying she was 10 minutes away from the Saudi borders with her UAE driving license, which is valid for driving in all GCC countries.
‘Someone at the Saudi Customs told me that the law doesn’t allow you to cross, and asked her to take a mean of public transport or a flight,’ she tweeted.
In a later tweet she sarcastically said: ‘In brief words, I hope if someone could bring me a camel or a horse where I was now, now I can move on, I love you the law.’
‘I have spent nine hours stranded on Saudi borders unable to cross and enter into my country,’ she tweeted, adding, ‘Now it is time to sleep, and near where I was in the car there are immigration and passport officers on their duty. One of them told me they had been on duty for three days continuously. May Allah help them,’ she said.
Many Saudi citizens are following the young activist closely. She has been tweeting regular updates from Saudi’s Al Bat’haa border checkpoint bordering the UAE.
Earlier, activists initiated a campaign on Twitter titled ‘October 26’ to defy a Saudi ban on women driving. The theme of the campaign is ‘together to lift a ban on lady driving’.
The campaign called on interested women to take to their cars and drive that day – on October 26. However, the campaign did not get good response.
