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'Saudi women may drive if men say so'
Monday, December 26, 2005
REUTERS
RIYADH: Crown Prince Sultan has held open the possibility that Saudi Arabia could lift its ban on women drivers but said Saudi men would have the final say.
"When fathers, husbands and brothers ask us for women to drive we will look into it, though if they ask us the opposite we can't force them (to let women drive)," Sultan said in comments published on state news agency SPA late on Saturday.
The right of women to drive has been a key demand of reformers in US-allied Saudi Arabia, which follows the austere Wahhabi school of Islam.
Religious scholars fear driving would encourage women to mix with men outside their family. The ban is enforced in cities and on main roads but often flouted in rural areas.
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