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The anti male-guardianship campaign is an ongoing campaign by Saudi women against the requirement to obtain permission from their male guardian for activities such as getting a job, travelling internationally or getting married. [1] Wajeha al-Huwaider deliberately tried to travel internationally without male guardianship permission in 2009 and encouraged other women to do likewise. [2] Women activists wrote a letter to the Saudi Minister of Labor and brought media attention to the issue in 2011. [3] A 14,000-signature petition was given to royal authorities by Aziza al-Yousef in 2016 following a Human Rights Watch report on male guardianship. [1] A crackdown against the activists took place in mid-May 2018, with 13 arrests as of 22 May 2018 [update] . [4] [5] Several of the women remained in prison as of December 2018 [update] . [6] Some of the women activists were tortured, including supervision by Saud al-Qahtani, a close advisor of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. [6]
Women in the pre-Roman Arabian kingdom of Nabataea [7] were independent legal persons able to sign contracts in their own name. In Nabataea women were free to conduct legal contracts in their own name with no male guardian, unlike in Greek and Roman law, and in Saudi Arabia where the guardian is central to the clerics’ idea of a moral public sphere. The Wahhabi interpretation of sharia requires a “muhrim” — father, husband, brother or son — to accompany women in public, allow them to travel and attest their legal contracts. [8] In the late twentieth century, after the Grand Mosque seizure in 1979, King Khalid gave more power to religious groups. [9] In 2016, Human Rights Watch described the male guardianship situation in Saudi Arabia, stating that a Saudi woman's life "is controlled by a man from birth until death". [10] As of 2018 [update] , any adult woman in Saudi Arabia is required to obtain approval from her male guardian for activities such as accessing healthcare, getting a job, travelling or getting married. [1]
Wajeha al-Huwaider is a Saudi women's rights activist who in 2003 was banned by Saudi authorities from publishing her opinions in Saudi media and was arrested again after holding a women's rights street protest in August 2006. [11] In June 2009, she protested against male guardianship by trying three times to enter Bahrain without permission from her male guardian. [2] She was refused departure from Saudi Arabia at the Bahraini border all three times because of her lack of male-guardian authorisation. [2]
Al-Huwaider encouraged other Saudi women to carry out the same attempted border crossings without male guardian approval, with the aim of ending the male guardianship system. [2]
Late in 2011, during the 2011–12 Saudi Arabian protests, Saudi women started a campaign against the Saudi Ministry of Labor requirement for guardian approval for employment. The group contacted the media and argued that women's equality is established in the eighth article of the Saudi Arabian constitution, and that Islamic scholars generally do not see male guardian approval as a requirement for a woman to be employed. [12] [3]
The group held workshops on the issue and studied Islamic religious arguments in relation to male guardianship. [1]
In July 2016, Human Rights Watch issued a detailed report on male guardianship in Saudi Arabia. [10] The report brought attention to the topic, and Twitter hashtags #IAmMyOwnGuardian and #StopEnslavingSaudiWomen [13] became popular. Several months later, in September 2016, 2500 women sent telegrams to King Salman, and fourteen thousand people, including Aziza al-Yousef, Loujain al-Hathloul and Eman al-Nafjan, signed a petition, calling for the male guardianship system to be fully abolished. [1] [14] Al-Yousef went to the royal court to deliver the petition. Human Rights Watch described the 2016 wave of activism against male guardianship as "incredible and unprecedented". [13]
During 2018–2019 there was a crackdown on women's rights activists in Saudi Arabia involved in the women to drive movement and the Saudi anti male-guardianship campaign and of their supporters, with waves of arrests mainly in May 2018 [15] and April 2019. [16] The arrests were described in June 2018 by a United Nations special rapporteurs as a "crackdown" taking place "on a wide scale across" Saudi Arabia; the special rapporteur called for the "urgent release" of the detainees. [17] Six of the women arrestees were tortured, [18] [19] some in the presence of Crown Prince advisor Saud al-Qahtani. [6]
In early January 2019, Rahaf Mohammed sought her right of asylum while transiting Bangkok airport, on the basis of what she stated was physical and psychological abuse by her family. [20] Her situation gained wide international media attention and support from online social networks, saving her from being deported according to ESOHR-appointed lawyer François Zimeray. [21] Following the international online campaign Canadian authorities offered her asylum after she was given refugee status by the UNHCR. [22] Anger against the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi constituting a triggering factor in the online support according to Thomson Reuters. The online reaction included a Twitter revival of the anti male-guardianship campaign, with the trending slogan, "Remove guardianship and we won't all migrate". [23]
In August 2019, a royal decree was published in the Saudi official gazette Um al-Qura that would allow Saudi women over 21 to obtain passports and travel abroad without male guardian permission. The decree also gave women the rights to register a marriage, divorce or birth or obtain official family documents; and gave the mother the right to be a legal guardian of a child. The date of the measures officially come into force was not stated in the decree. [24] [25]
Madawi al-Rasheed interpreted the weakening of the guardianship system as an effect (a "second victory") of the Saudi feminist movement, following the 2018 lifting of the women driving ban. She referred to remaining guardianship restrictions including the need for male guardian permission to marry, leave prison or a domestic violence shelter, and to work, study or seek medical care. [26] Al-Rasheed argued that many of the anti male-guardianship campaigners wouldn't be "able to celebrate" the new announcement, due to imprisonment, travel bans or exile. [26]
Human rights in Saudi Arabia are a topic of concern and controversy. Known for its executions of political protesters and opponents, the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been accused of and denounced by various international organizations and governments for violating human rights within the country. An absolute monarchy under the House of Saud, the government is consistently ranked among the "worst of the worst" in Freedom House's annual survey of political and civil rights and was in 2023 ranked as the world's most authoritarian regime.
Women's rights in Saudi Arabia is a topic of international concern and controversy. Women in Saudi Arabia experience widespread discrimination in Saudi politics, economy and society.
Wajeha al-Huwaider is a Saudi activist and writer, who played key roles in the anti male-guardianship and women to drive campaigns during the early twenty-first century. She is a co-founder of The Association for the Protection and Defense of Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia. As a result of her work, al-Huwaider has been the recipient of both significant legal prosecution in Saudi Arabia and international praise.
Eman al-Nafjan is a Saudi Arabian blogger and women's rights activist. She was detained by Saudi authorities in May 2018 along with Loujain al-Hathloul and five other women's rights activists in what Human Rights Watch interpreted as an attempt to frighten her and the other activists, during the 2018–2019 Saudi crackdown on feminists.
Manal al-Sharif is a Saudi women's rights activist who helped start a right to drive campaign in 2011. Wajeha al-Huwaider filmed al-Sharif driving a car as part of the campaign. The video was posted on YouTube and Facebook. Al-Sharif was detained on 21 May 2011, released, and then rearrested the following day. On 30 May, al-Sharif was released on bail, on the conditions of returning for questioning if requested, not driving, and not talking to the media. The New York Times and Associated Press associated the women's driving campaign as part of the Arab Spring and the long duration of al-Sharif's detention due to Saudi authorities' fear of protests.
Hatoon Ajwad al-Fassi is a Saudi Arabian historian, author and women's rights activist. She is an associate professor of women's history at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia, where she has been employed since 1989 and at the International Affairs Department at Qatar University. At the university, al-Fassi carries out historical research. Al-Fassi claims from her research into the pre-Islamic Arabian kingdom of Nabataea that women in the kingdom had more independence than women in modern Saudi Arabia. Al-Fassi was active in women's right to vote campaigns for the 2005 and 2011 municipal elections and was active in a similar campaign for the 2015 municipal elections. She was arrested in late June 2018 as part of a crackdown on women's activists and was released in early May 2019.
Until June 2018, Saudi Arabia was the only country in the world in which women were forbidden from driving motor vehicles. The Women to Drive Movement was a campaign by Saudi women, whom the government denies many rights to which men are entitled, for the right to drive motor vehicles on public roads. Dozens of women drove in Riyadh in 1990 and were arrested and had their passports confiscated. In 2007, Wajeha al-Huwaider and other women petitioned King Abdullah for the right to drive, and a film of al-Huwaider driving on International Women's Day 2008 attracted international media attention.
Samar bint Muhammad Badawi is a Saudi Arabian human rights activist. She and her father filed court cases against each other. Badawi's father accused her of disobedience under the Saudi Arabian male guardianship system and she charged her father with adhl—"making it hard or impossible for a person, especially a woman, to have what she wants, or what's rightfully hers; e.g, her right to marry" according to Islamic jurisprudence—for refusing to allow her to marry. After Badawi missed several trial dates relating to the charge, an arrest warrant was issued for her, and Badawi was imprisoned on 4 April 2010. In July 2010, Jeddah General Court ruled in Samar Badawi's favor, and she was released on 25 October 2010, and her guardianship was transferred to an uncle. There had been a local and international support campaign for her release. The Saudi NGO Human Rights First Society described Badawi's imprisonment as "outrageous illegal detention".
Mohammad Fahad Muflih al-Qahtani is a human rights activist, economics professor and political prisoner currently jailed at Al-Ha’ir Prison in Riyadh. Prior to his arbitrary 2012 arrest, he co-founded and later lead the Saudi Arabia human rights organisation Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association. Alkarama described al-Qahtani as "one of [the Saudi Arabian judiciary's] most eloquent and fervent critics". On 9 March 2013, al-Qahtani was sentenced to ten years in prison followed by a ten-year travel ban, ostensibly for "co-founding an unlicensed civil association". He has carried out several hunger strikes to protest Saudi prison conditions endured during his politically motivated incarceration. As of 2022, he remains jailed and has been intermittently kept in solitary confinement since 2018.
Dissidents have been detained as political prisoners in Saudi Arabia during the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s and earlier. Protests and sit-ins calling for political prisoners to be released took place during the 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests in many cities throughout Saudi Arabia, with security forces firing live bullets in the air on 19 August 2012 at a protest at al-Ha'ir Prison. As of 2012, recent estimates of the number of political prisoners in Mabahith prisons range from a denial of any political prisoners at all by the Ministry of Interior, to 30,000 by the UK-based Islamic Human Rights Commission and the BBC.
Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, popularly known by his initials as MBS or MbS, is the heir apparent to the Saudi Arabian throne. He is currently Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia. He is the seventh son of King Salman of Saudi Arabia and grandson of the nation's founder, King Abdulaziz.
The modern history of Saudi Arabia begins with the declaration of the unification of Saudi Arabia in a single kingdom in 1932. This period of time in Saudi Arabia's history includes the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia and many events. It goes on to encompass Saudi Arabia's brief involvement in World War II in 1945. Afterwards, it includes Saudi Arabia's involvement in the Western Bloc and the Cold War. It also includes Saudi Arabia's proxy conflict with Iran, the Arab Spring, and the ongoing Arab Winter.
Nathalie Morin is a Canadian citizen, born in Quebec, who has been living in Saudi Arabia with her partner, Saeed Al Shahrani since 2005. She claims that she is physically and psychologically mistreated with her four children. She has stated that she "does not have any friend[s]" in Saudi Arabia and is shunned because of her foreign roots. She refuses to leave Saudi Arabia as her husband has custody of their children.
Loujain al-Hathloul is a Saudi women's rights activist, a social media figure, and political prisoner. She has been arrested on several occasions for defying the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia. In May 2018, she and several prominent women's rights activists were kidnapped in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and deported to Saudi Arabia where they were charged with "attempting to destabilise the kingdom." Her ex-husband, Saudi stand-up comedian Fahad al-Butairi, had also been forcibly returned from Jordan to the Kingdom and was under arrest.
Aziza al-Yousef is a Saudi Arabian women's rights activist and academic. She was detained by Saudi authorities in May 2018 along with Loujain al-Hathloul and five others.
ALQST or Al Qst is a human rights organisation that documents and promotes human rights in Saudi Arabia, with a team in Saudi Arabia that researches cases and a team in London that publishes reports and news.
Rahaf Mohammed is a Saudi author who was detained by Thai authorities on 5 January 2019 while in transit through an airport in Bangkok, en route from Kuwait to Australia.
Nassima al-Sadah is a Shia human rights writer and activist from the "restive Shi'ite-majority" eastern province Qatif, Saudi Arabia. She has "campaigned for civil and political rights, women's rights and the rights of the Shi'a minority" in the eastern province Qatif, Saudi Arabia for many years. She ran as a candidate in the 2015 Saudi Arabian municipal elections but was disqualified. Sadah and another prominent activist, Samar Badawi, were arrested on July 30, 2018, by Saudi authorities in a broader "government crackdown" on "activists, clerics and journalists."
The 2018–2019 Saudi crackdown on feminists consisted of waves of arrests of women's rights activists in Saudi Arabia involved in the women to drive movement and the Saudi anti male-guardianship campaign and of their supporters during 2018 and 2019. The crackdown was described in June 2018 by a United Nations special rapporteur as taking place "on a wide scale across" Saudi Arabia; the special rapporteur called for the "urgent release" of the detainees. Six of the women arrestees were tortured, some in the presence of Crown Prince advisor Saud al-Qahtani.
Feminism in Saudi Arabia dates back to the ancient, pre-Roman Nabataean Kingdom in which women were independent legal persons. Twenty-first century feminist movements in Saudi Arabia include the women to drive movement and the anti male-guardianship campaign. Madawi al-Rasheed argued in 2019 that the Saudi feminist movement was "the most organised and articulate civil society" in Saudi Arabia.
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has generic name (help)Those old men actually believed that the Mosque disaster was God's punishment to us because we were publishing women's photographs in the newspapers, says a princess, one of Khaled's nieces. The worrying thing is that the king [Khaled] probably believed that as well ... Khaled had come to agree with the sheikhs. Foreign influences and bida'a were the problem. The solution to the religious upheaval was simple--more religion.