Saudi women activists call for woman's right to citizenship
Saudi Arabia, Culture, 11/4/2003

Saudi Arabian women activists fighting for improving conditions of woman in the kingdom have called for recognizing women in Saudi Arabia as citizens with full rights and stressed their right to get back their rights before thinking of any political reforms in the country.

Fawziya Abu Khaled, a university teacher who got her BA in sociology from England, said that the Saudi society is in need of perpetuating the rights of the woman. She called for reinterpretation of the enforced laws inspired from the Sharia so as to "cope with the requirements of the age."

In a future interpretation, Fawziya expected that there will be a kind of representation for women like certain appointments in the Shoura council or forming women revival committees and considered that the criterion will be "commitment to the institution."

But she said that the basic issue is "to recognize women and their natural rights in all vocational and educational issues." She noted that "it is not realistic to talks about liberating women while men are still waiting for their right to vote and to elections."

In the same context, Fatemah al-Khareiji, the supervisor on faculties in the ministry of education which got her education from the USA, said that the authorities have to define the needs of citizens and introduce necessary reforms.

A third Saudi woman activist, who also a graduate from the USA criticized the promised reforms and considered them as "formalities aiming at improving the image of Saudi Arabia in the west."

The three women activists agree on that improving the situation of the woman will come in response to an economic need and pressure rather than a political conviction." They considered that the political and religious authorities fear a social explosion in Saudi Arabia.

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