Saudi Arabia: Outrage Over 10 Lashes for Female Driver

Six months ago, Shaima Jastaniya drove her car in one of Jeddah's streets before getting arrested by the police. In September, Jastaniya was sentenced to 10 lashes for challenging the driving ban but a few days later, news spread that she received a pardon from the Saudi monarch himself. When interrogated, she said she drove her car because she had no means of public or private transportation and needed to get to the hospital. Over the past 48 hours, Saudi tweeps confirmed that Jastaniya received the court's lashing order and has 30 days to appeal. Unlike other women who drove in Saudi Arabia, such as Manal Al-Sharif and Najlaa Hariri, Jastaniya did not video-tape herself when driving to post it online.

What came as a bigger surprise to Saudis was actually the leaked document that the court sent to Al-Watan newspaper summoning two female journalists to court for writing the news article on the lashing sentence Jastaniya received two months ago. The two female journalists are Nissrin Najm Al-Din and Samya Al-Essa and here is a link to the story they wrote about the lashing, where they refer to the first two letters of Jastaniya's name.

* Continue reading this post in GlobalVoices