Women might be allowed to get licenses but ... can’t drive

June 21, 2014

Riyadh, Jun 21: The Shoura Council is studying a proposal to allow Saudi women to apply for international driving licenses in the Kingdom, which would allow them to drive abroad but with the ban still in place in the Kingdom.

Latifa Al-Shaalan and Haya Al-Manei, two of the 30 women members of the council, have called for the council to consider this proposal, according to a report in a local newspaper on Friday.

The two women had filed a recommendation with the council nine months ago to allow women to drive.

Article 23 of the council's framework legislation allows members to propose new laws or amend existing ones.

Sources said the proposal calls for the amendment of Article 36 of the country's traffic legislation, which is related to drivers’ licenses. The proposal states that a driver's license is a right of men and women.

According to sources, the advisory administration at the Shoura is studying the new proposal, and has not yet referred it to the relevant committee, which might be the security committee.

Journalist Abdullah Al-Alami said the application is an extension of an earlier one presented by other women members of the council. “This doesn’t mean that women would be allowed to drive, it is only related to allowing women to get an international license, instead of travelling to other countries to get one,” he said.

He hoped that the advisory administration at the council would be more flexible when dealing with these demands, because it would benefit citizens.

The news comes months after several Saudi women activists defied the ban by driving in Riyadh and in various parts of the Kingdom over the past few years.

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UN condemns Israeli regime’s ‘organized torture’ against Palestinians

News Network

November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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