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Jeddah: A group of Saudi women have formed a committee to lobby for the right to get behind the wheel.
The group has said it plans to petition King Abdullah in the next few days about overturning the ban on women driving in the kingdom.
The government is unlikely to respond because the issue remains so highly sensitive and divisive.
But committee members say their petition will at least highlight what many Saudis - both men and women - consider a ''stolen'' right.
''We would like to remind officials that this is, as many have said, a social and not a religious or political issue,'' said Fowziyyah Al Oyouni, a founding member of the Committee of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars. ''And since it's a social issue, we have the right to lobby for it.''
Committee members want to deliver their petition to the king by Sunday, Saudi Arabia's national day.
The driving ban applies to all women, Saudi and foreign, and forces families to hire live-in drivers.
Women whose families cannot afford a driver must rely on male relatives to drive them around.
The last time the issue was raised was two years ago, when Mohammed Al Zulfa, a member of the unelected Consultative Council, asked his colleagues to think about studying the possibility of allowing women over age 35 or 40 to drive.
The suggestion touched off a fierce controversy that included calls for Al Zulfa's removal from the council and stripping him of Saudi citizenship, as well as accusations he was encouraging women to commit the double sins of discarding their veils and mixing with men.
Conservatives, who believe women should be shielded from male strangers, say women will be free to leave home alone and go when and where they please. They also will unduly expose their eyes while driving and interact with male strangers.
But supporters of female drivers say the prohibition exists neither in law nor Islam, but is based on fatwas, or edicts, by senior clerics.
Women tried to defy the ban once and paid heavily for it. In November 1990, when US troops were in Saudi Arabia following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, some 50 women got behind the wheel and drove family cars.
They were jailed for one day, their passports were confiscated and they lost their jobs.
Al Oyouni said she understands that some women oppose ending the ban. ''We won't force it on those who don't want it,'' she said.
The petition, circulated electronically for signatures, has received a lot of support from within the kingdom, from both men and women, as well as from outside Saudi Arabia, Al Oyouni said. ''This is a right that has been delayed for too long.''
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