RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – A number of Saudi women drove cars Friday in response to calls for nationwide action to break a traditional ban unique to the ultra-conservative kingdom.

"We've just returned from the supermarket. My wife decided to start the day by driving to the store and back," columnist Tawfiq Alsaif said on Twitter.


"My wife, Maha, and I have just come from a 45-minute drive. She was the driver through Riyadh streets," said Mohammad al Qahtani, president of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, in another tweet.

Many Saudi women had pledged on Facebook and Twitter to answer the call to defy the deeply entrenched ban, in the largest such mass action since November 1990, when female demonstrators were arrested and severely penalized.

Instead of staging demonstrations, which are strictly banned in the absolute monarchy, women with driving licences obtained abroad were encouraged to take individual action.

Veteran women's rights activist Wajiha al Huwaider said she did not expect a huge turnout as hoped for by sympathizers abroad because of the severe response by officials to women who have taken the lead in recent weeks.

"I do not expect something big as people abroad imagine," she said, adding that jailing activist Manal al Sherif and others has scared some women off.

Sharif, a 32-year-old computer scientist, found herself behind bars for two weeks last month after driving in the Eastern Province and posting footage of her actions on the internet.

Six other women were also briefly detained after being caught learning to drive on an empty plot of land in north Riyadh.

Women in Saudi Arabia face an array of constraints, ranging from having to cover from head to toe in public and needing a male guardian's permission to travel, to having restricted access to jobs because of strict segregation rules.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/06/17/saudi-women-hit-road-in-driving-ban-protest/#ixzz1PWgDK8N7

Way to go ladies! Stick it to that midevil religion and the religion of non-stop human rights violations!