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Thursday 23 June 2011

[wanita-muslimah] Saudi Women Set Their Sights on the Right to Vote

*Saudi Women Set Their Sights on the Right to Vote*
Published on Muslimah Media
Watch<http://muslimahmediawatch.org/2011/06/saudi-women-set-their-sights-on-the-right-to-vote/>|
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<http://muslimahmediawatch.org/2011/06/saudi-women-set-their-sights-on-the-right-to-vote/36-1/>

"Equality." Image from Al-Watan.

Last March, Saudi authorities stated that half the seats in the municipal
council<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government#Kingdom_of_Saudi_Arabia>in
the next September 2011 run would be
elected<http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/06/us-saudi-elections-idUSTRE75549S20110606>,
rather than selected by the monarch himself as usual. But when they
implemented elections, they neglected to include women's votes. When asked
why, the kingdom's electoral commission mentioned it was because of
logistic-related difficulties in sex-segregated election
stations<http://feministmedia.tumblr.com/post/4697163971/saudi-women-demand-voting-rights>,
the same reason that was previously
used<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabian_municipal_elections,_2005>back
in 2005. Almost six years have passed and nothing has changed, proving
only that logistic-related difficulties are only an excuse for not making
changes.

"Women will not participate in this session," Abdul- Rahman al-Dahmash,
director of the kingdom's electoral commission, said referring to the
municipal balloting. "There is a plan, though not with a definite time, to
put in place a framework so that women can participate in upcoming
elections."

Saudi women are not shutting up this time! Activists decided to create their
own municipal council to cast their
votes<http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/04/01/143829.html>,
and a whole online campaign called
"Baladi<http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_126901933994463>"
("My country") has been lunched and widely spread—it's gathered
2,000<http://speakforchange.org/2011/04/12/saudi-women-demand-to-vote-in-elections/>members
in a short period of time. The campaign is solely run by women from
different parts of Saudi Arabia:

We will never give up, and we will not stop our campaigning," said Dr.
Hatoon al-Fassi whose is a human rights activist and a history lecturer at
King Saud University in Riyadh. [sic]

Several Saudi women have recently challenged this ban by showing up at voter
registration<http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1600/saudi-women-respond-to-exclusion-from-voting_balad>offices
in different Saudi cities demanding voter identification cards.
Saudi blogger Zaki
Safar<http://zakisafar.com/voting-rights-for-saudi-women/>reports:

When two young women made attempts to register to vote, they were subjected
by some locals to a broad spectrum of insults, ranging from
"unoriginal/impure Saudis" to "attention seekers" to "whores". They were
told "to stay home and raise kids," and in some cases thought to warrant
legal prosecution.

And against all expected odds, there's some official support to the cause.
The Shoura Council
recommended<http://www.globalroomforwomen.com/global-heart-blog/entry/shoura-council-demands-measures-to-allow-saudi-women-to-vote.html>to
the government that it take necessary measures to allow Saudi women to
vote in municipal elections under Islamic law (since "Islamic law" is up for
debate, who knows what *that *means). But the Shoura Council Secretary
General explained that the house insisted that the franchise should only be
exercised by women in line with Islamic regulations.

What could that possibly mean? Like women should stand in a line waiting for
approval that they pass some arbitrary Islamic test and so are qualified to
be humans enough for their votes to be valid?

Things have really changed in the nature of the Saudi society, specially how
men see women and the concept of equality. In his blog, Saudi blogger Zaki
Safar <http://zakisafar.com/voting-rights-for-saudi-women/> says:

As a Saudi male watching such a quagmire unfold day in and day out, the
inequity weighs greatly on my mind and heart. The fact thatthere is little I
can do to help rectify the situation amounts to a rubbing of salt into a
wound. [sic]

Not only that Safar feels guilty about how Saudi women live, but also he
thinks highly of the fact that women in his country suffer in the name of
religion:

To top it all off, my country, the land where the generous Prophet of Islam
brought unprecedented rights and status to women, is also burdened by an
ever-more empowered religious police force that unfailingly breathes down
women's necks, further and further stifling and eroding the little freedom
they might otherwise have enjoyed.

Though one cannot neglect the hint of hope from everything happening and
changing that the structure of the Saudi nation, writer Irfan Al-Alawi is
asking us to be "carefully optimistic" and take a very good look at
everything happening. In his article "Justice delayed is justice
denied<http://nmen.org/saudi-arabia-justice-delayed-is-justice-denied/>,"
he uses the example that the Saudi authorities decided to give all Saudi
female law graduates the right to be hired in courts and different legal
service offices all over the country: since these women were only hired in
legal cases involving a woman, the sex-segregation rule was still preserved!

Prohibiting women from voting immediately while promising them a concession
in the future is so obvious in its deceit that it would seem to require no
further comment. The Shoura Council expressed its contempt for women's calls
to be treated equally by relegating its discussion of female suffrage to a
meeting of its committee on housing, water and public services.

Right now, there's an almost official acceptance to the idea of voting, but
the issue is when it will be fully accepted. Dr. Hatton Al-Fassi says that
this is not enough <http://www.alriyadh.com/2011/06/12/article640975.html>:

On behalf of Saudi women who are keen to be present in the public matter,
and to respond to the invitation of our king to be a partner of the man in
building the country, I hope to adopt the recommendation of women's
participation as candidates in municipal elections. Considering that this is
a right provided for in the list of municipal elections, but will have a
strong impact if it was also of the Shura Council. We hope to take this
recommendation in a period of time less than the ten months it took for the
previous recommendations!

Saudi women are charging for their rights, both behind the wheel and in the
voting booth. Don't stop now, ladies!

Feedly. Feed your mind. http://www.feedly.com <http://www.feedly.com/#mail>


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