CAIRO -- Saudi activists say a court has sentenced a Saudi woman with 10 lashes for defying the kingdom's ban on women driving. Activist Samar Badawi says Shaima Ghassaniya was found guilty Tuesday of driving without the government's permission. No laws prohibit women from driving, but conservative religious edicts have banned it. The ruling comes just two days after Saudi King Abdullah announced that, for the first time, women have the right to vote and run in the country's 2015 local elections. Najalaa Harriri, who is also facing court for driving, told The Associated Press she needed to drive to take better care of her children. Tuesday's verdict is the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia. Other women were detained for several days, but had not been sentenced by a court. http://www.sacbee.com/2011/09/27/3942151/saudi-woman-to-get-10-lashes-for.html
Saudi Arabia is one of the Muslim countries where sharia law and those who practice it have political control.The king is progressive and lives with the rest of us in the 21st century.But he has to deal with the powerful clerics who have a stranglehold on the kingdom.King Abdullah fully realizes that with the internet highway the old traditional ways of doing things are quickly becoming unacceptable to the people,both male and female.It's a tough balancing act between trying to appease the clerics and trying to please the people.Saudi Arabia like all the Arab countries will come out of it's medieval traditions and join the rest of us here in the present.I highly doubt that the sentence,while given will be carried out.Because of the international press the sentence will probably be reduced to a fine.
A muslim country be it rich or poor tends to remain backward. Saudi arabia is relatively rich country but still backward.
oh still Saudi people fight for such primitive rights, sigh. such oil money is extreme power in hand of primitive leaders. such money also spread in Islam world to support fanatic people in madrases and mosque.
Actually it's more of a point that without the export of natural resources or aid the muslim countries don't have a lot of economic power .
If there was no oil in middle east, then just like we know that antartica is place full of ice. Then the middle east would be considered as the one with sheeer poverty.
Some times I wonder, if there was no oil in Middle east, the world would have been in a much deeper shit probably..
Nobody really knows how much oil is in the middle east, oil rich countries always over exaggerate how much they have in reserves for all kinds of political reasons. They're all playing a weird game of poker with each other. Nobody wants the weaker hand.