Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive<br />Many Saudis remain deeply conservative, and social strictures like the driving ban have been reinforced<br />over the years by the kingdom’s top clerics, many of them on the government payroll.<br />The ambassador, who is a son of the king, said that women would be able to drive alone but<br />that the Interior Ministry would decide whether they could work as professional drivers.<br />But in a small news conference at the Saudi embassy in Washington, an exuberant Prince Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador, said women would be able to obtain driver’s licenses<br />without having to ask permission of their husbands, fathers or any male guardian — despite so-called “guardianship” laws that give men power over their female relatives.<br />After the change on the driving ban was announced, an anonymous text circulated through What’s App in the kingdom calling<br />on the “virtuous ones” to work against its implementation, to protect against epidemics, adultery and other disasters.
