Women Driving Not a Priority: Prince Naif
P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News

JEDDAH, 14 June 2005 — Interior Minister Prince Naif has criticized calls to lift a decades-old ban on women driving and said the issue was not a priority for the Kingdom.

He said he was surprised the matter had been raised in the Shoura Council. Referring to the council member who brought the issue up, the prince said: “Does he understand what the priorities are? We consider this issue to be a secondary issue, not a priority. These matters are decided by taking into consideration the public interest and what is dictated by a woman’s honor. I urge everybody to end this and not make an issue out of it, pitting one group against another.”

The Saudi Minister of the Interior, Prince Naif, has thrown a bucket of cold water on the question of women’s driving in the country. By calling the raising of the matter “not a priority,” he’s stating that it’s not an important enough issue to even be discussing in political fora. I suspect he’s wrong.

Let’s see what the local media–and women–have to say over the coming week.