![]() Manal Al-Sharif at the Oslo Freedom Forum in 2012 She was presented the award at the Oslo Freedom Forum, affectionately known as the ‘Davos for Dissidents’ in 2012. For her efforts, Manal Al-Sharif was awarded the inaugural Vaclav Havel Award for Creative Dissent. It’s difficult to change one’s society, especially for women in a society that is traditionally patriarchal. The first sentence in her memoir about her #Women2Drive campaign is: ‘The secret police knocked on my door at 2 a.m.’ And so begins the tale of this human rights campaign. Apparently, there were other authorities that could come on the compound. One year it was skydiving.Īs the first woman cyber security expert at the oil exploration company Aramco, she was able to drive on the Aramco compound where the religious police and municipal police didn’t patrol. Manal Al-Sharif had learned to drive in her years overseas - indeed, she tried to do one very daring thing every year on her birthday. ![]() ‘Why do you want to give the King these headaches?’ ‘Don’t you love the King?’ Saudis asked her. It was the height of the Arab Spring and Saudi Arabia didn’t need the negative publicity of female dissent. Her bold videos and calls for women to be able to drive were not appreciated when they happened. Manal Al-Sharif was the very public face of the #Women2Drive campaign in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. ![]() ![]() Manal Al-Sharif driving on the streets of Saudi Arabia ![]()
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