ABU DHABI // A Saudi official on Saturday denied a report that an important advisory committee had recommended the lifting of a ban on female drivers.
Muhammad Al Muhana, the spokesman for Saudi Arabia's Shura Council, said that no such statement was issued by the council, according to the news website Sabq.
An anonymous council member told the Associated Press on Friday that the council, in a closed session last month, had recommended that women over 30 be allowed to drive.
The 150-member council, which includes some women, serves as an advisory committee to the government, but their recommendations do not necessarily become law.
Mr Al Muhana's swift denial of the report was followed by a "source close to a Shura Council" telling Al Arabiya that there was no recent development regarding women driving in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive.
The country has seen frequent challenges to the driving ban, with female activists publishing photos of themselves driving on social media, despite the risk of arrest.
Last month, Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry warned that women should not repeat the October 26, 2013 demonstration in which dozens of Saudi women said they had taken to the road in protest of the ban.
The driving ban forces families to employ drivers for women. Women who can’t afford up to Dh1,500 a month for a driver must rely on male relatives to drive them to work, school, shopping or the doctor.
The council member told the Associated Press that the recommendation stated that women should only be allowed on the roads between 7am to 8pm on Saturday through Wednesday and noon to 8pm on Thursday and Friday and must have the permission of a male relative to drive.
The women must also wear conservative dress and no make-up. They can drive without a male relatives in city. But outside of cities a male is required to be present.
The council had reportedly said a “female traffic department” would have to be created to deal with female drivers if their cars broke down or they encountered other problems, and to issue fines. It recommended the female traffic officers be under the supervision of the “religious agencies.”
The council also reportedly placed heavy restrictions on interactions between female drivers and male traffic officers or other male drivers, and stiff penalties for those who broke them.
Merely speaking to a female driver, it said, was punishable by a one-month prison sentence and a fine.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
* With additional reporting by the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse