As a campaign for Saudi women to defy the driving ban in their country heats up, one of the country's leading female bloggers was detained in Riyadh on Thursday after a woman she was with did just that.

Eman al-Nafjan, who tweets as
Saudiwoman and has been one of the
leading voices urging Saudi women to
get behind the wheel on October 26,
was in a car that was stopped by
police in Riyadh, the capital, as she
filmed another woman driving.
Al-Nafjan, who has been calling on
Saudi women to upload videos of
themselves driving in different parts
of the kingdom, spoke exclusively with
CNN on Friday about what happened.
"Yesterday, I kept getting called by
women I know who wanted me to film
them driving," she said, explaining
how she spent most of the day filming
and uploading information about those
excursions online.

"When I was live tweeting, some
people took it into their heads that we
had to be stopped," said al-Nafjan,
"and then called the police."
She was live tweeting as they were
pulled over, posting a picture of the
police car that had pulled alongside
them, accompanied by the message,
"Police stopped us."

That tweet set off a flurry of concern and supportive messages from Twitter users throughout Saudi Arabia. Al-Nafjan initially felt queasy about being stopped, but her unease and worry quickly dissipated when she saw that "police were smiling and easygoing, and their attitude was very positive. The police
were really nice to us." They were taken to the Olaya Police Station, where she and Azza, the woman who had driven her, waited.

"The vibe I got was that they didn't
know what to do with us. We could see
the police going around, calling,
waiting," explained al-Nafjan, who
says she believes this is a sign that
the driving campaign has gained
momentum and that many in Saudi
Arabia, including officials, think the
time has come to allow women to drive.

October 26 campaign

Women who want Saudi Arabia to lift a
de facto ban on their driving have
launched an online campaign urging
Saudi women to stage a
demonstration by driving cars on
October 26.

"There is no justification for the Saudi
government to prohibit adult women
citizens who are capable of driving
cars from doing so," reads part of an
online petition on the
Oct26driving.com website. Even
though the website was reportedly
blocked in Saudi Arabia shortly after
its creation in late September, the
petition has so far garnered more than
14,000 signatures.

No traffic law specifically prohibits
women from driving in Saudi Arabia,
but religious edicts there are often
interpreted to mean women are not
allowed to operate a vehicle.
CNN was unable to reach Saudi
Arabia's Interior and Justice ministries
for comment on the issue.
Just a day before being stopped by
police, al-Nafjan posted online another
video she filmed of a woman driving
for two hours throughout Riyadh. They
were not stopped, and the video
shows male drivers waving to the
women and supporting them with the
thumbs-up sign. That video quickly
went viral, eliciting numerous
comments. While most were
supportive, there was also a negative
reaction -- at one point, a hashtag was
created calling for al-Nafjan's arrest.

Al-Nafjan says her husband was also
made to come to the police station
Thursday. When al-Nafjan was finally
told to come inside, she was asked if
she knew that what she did was
wrong.
"I said it's not wrong," said al-Nafjan,
who was then told to sign two
documents: one stating that she would
no longer get into a car with a woman
driving, and another that she would no
longer film women driving.

When asked if she would adhere to
those agreements, al-Nafjan said that
"it doesn't matter whether or not I go
out. This isn't about me. This is a
people's movement. This is not about
me. This is about many women."
Al-Nafjan, who was in extremely high
spirits while speaking via phone with
CNN, said the experience with police
ultimately bolstered her confidence in
the movement she is helping
spearhead. She said the lack of her
arrest and her and Azza's quick
release show that this campaign is
making a difference and things are
beginning to change.

Other challenges to driving ban

The issue of women driving in the
conservative kingdom has long been
contentious. And while such
demonstrations are extremely rare,
they have been staged at least twice
before.

In May 2011, prominent Saudi
women's rights activist Manal al-Sharif
was arrested after uploading a video
to YouTube that showed her driving in
Saudi Arabia. She spent more than a
week in jail and quickly became a hero
to numerous women in her country
and across the Middle East.
In a sign of just how influential she
had grown, on June 17, 2011, dozens
of women across Saudi Arabia,
emboldened and inspired by al-Sharif's
ordeal, participated in the
"Women2Drive" campaign by getting
behind the wheel, defying the ban and
driving throughout the streets of their
cities.

In 1991, a group of 47 women
protested the prohibition by driving
through Riyadh. After being arrested,
many were further punished by being
banned from travel and suspended
from their workplaces.

Recently, a leading Saudi cleric made
headlines when giving an interview in
which he warned Saudi women that
driving could cause damage to their
ovaries -- a comment that was widely
interpreted to be a reaction against
the October 26 driving campaign and
how popular it had grown.

In addition to prohibiting driving, the
country's strict and compulsory
guardianship system also prevents
women from opening bank accounts,
working, traveling and going to school
without the express permission of a
male guardian.

Saudi Arabia has been moving toward
change under its current ruler, King
Abdullah, who is considered a cautious
reformer and proponent of women's
rights. In January, he appointed 30
women to the Shura Council, the first
time women had been chosen for the
country's top consultative body. In
2011, he announced that women
could run for office and vote in local
elections in 2015. And in 2009, he
appointed Saudi Arabia's first female
Deputy Minister.

[url=edition.cnn.com/2013/10/11/world/meast/saudi-arabia-women-drivers/]Source[/url]