"She was put in jail for a week and forced to sign a document agreeing not to talk to the press or continue her calls for reform. This had a chilling effect on women.
But, this week, Reem al-Faisal, a princess, activist and Jidda photographer who is the granddaughter of the late King Faisal and the niece of the Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, spoke out, writing in The Arab News that 'it is truly tragic that we have to fight for such an essential yet mediocre right' and be treated as 'eternal minors.'”
Is it only the ban on driving which has a "chilling effect on women" in the desert kingdom? This is a whitewash.
Note this March 2011 item from the Los Angeles Times (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2009/03/saudi-arabia-el.html):
"Last week, a 75-year-old Saudi woman was sentenced to 40 lashes and four months in prison for receiving two unrelated men in her home.
It didn't matter that they were only delivering bread, or that she is elderly and practically raised one of the men as her son. In Saudi Arabia, the law strictly bans a woman from mixing with men unrelated to her by blood or marriage."
Another example of the miscreant treatment of women in Saudi Arabia? As reported by GMA News in 2010 (http://www.gmanews.tv/story/182079/raped-ofw-may-get-100-lashes-after-miscarriage):
"An overseas Filipino worker languishing in a Saudi Arabian jail suffered miscarriage and now fears getting a hundred lashes before finally being freed.
Camille (not her real name) has been in prison since August last year after her employer turned her over to authorities because she got pregnant out of wedlock by a co-worker who raped her.
. . . .
The Shari’ah or Islamic law imposes imprisonment for women who get pregnant out of wedlock and, after giving birth, a penalty of lashes to be determined by courts before being freed."
More? As reported by the Saudi Gazette in 2009 (http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?contentID=2009020828735&method=home.regcon):
"A 23-year-old unmarried woman was awarded one-year prison term and 100 lashes for committing adultery and trying to abort the resultant fetus.
The District Court in Jeddah pronounced the verdict on Saturday after the girl confessed that she had a forced sexual intercourse with a man who had offered her a ride. The man, the girl confessed, took her to a rest house, east of Jeddah, where he and four of friends assaulted her all night long.
The girl claimed that she became pregnant soon after and went to King Fahd Hospital for Armed Forces in an attempt to carry out an abortion. She was eight weeks’ pregnant then, the hospital confirmed.
According to the ruling, the woman will be sent to a jail outside Jeddah to spend her time and will be lashed after delivery of her baby who will take the mother’s last name."
Where were Dowd's reports on these occurrences? Had these events found their way into her New York Times column, she would never again have been permitted into Saudi Arabia.
Yes, Maureen, we all face difficult choices in our lifetimes.
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