Saudi Women Arrested For Driving Spent 2 Months in Prison

Two women's rights activists from Saudi Arabia, who protested the country's ban on female drivers, were freed after more than two months in jail, according to a campaigner.

Loujain al-Hathloul and Maysa al-Amoudi were arrested on December 1. Hathloul had tried to drive in from neighbouring United Arab Emirates (UAE) even as Amoudi, a UAE-based Saudi journalist, came to the border but got detained when she tried to support Hathloul.

In December, reports said that a court in Eastern Province had shifted the women to a special tribunal for "terrorism" cases.

Although the complete details of the charges against them were not clear, probes were conducted to check out and scrutinise their social media activities, not the breach of the female driving ban.

It is not technically illegal for women in Saudi Arabia to drive, but only men can obtain driving licenses. So women who drive in public face the risk of being banned and fined by officers, according to BBC.com.

Both the women are voluble in Twitter. Hathloul's followers exceed 232,000 and Amoudi's 136,000. A YouTube program features Amoudi talking about the driving ban.

"Yes, Loujain is free," confirmed an activist after talking to her. She said that her family had confirmed that she was free, and she had tweeted late on Thursday about her freedom.

Hathloul, who had put up her efforts to drive to Saudi Arabia from the United Arab Emirates on Facebook and Twitter in late November, confirmed it again on social media.

"Peace be upon you, good people," she tweeted.

Earlier on Thursday, Amoudi, the television journalist who had moved to Dubai so that she could drive, updated her Instagram account for the first time after she had been arrested with Hathloul two months earlier. She posted a drawing celebrating her freedom as well as a caption thanking God, according to nytimes.com.

But do the women still face all the charges that had been slapped on them, and were there any special conditions that had been put on their release from prison? It is not clear.

It is rumoured that British Prince Charles' visit to Saudi King Salman may have helped to release the women, according to BBC. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world in which driving is banned.