“Yes,” they said.
Once the men had walked off, I powered on my phone. Holding my breath, hoping the battery would last, I dialed one number. As quickly as I could, I explained where I was. “Please,” I said, “get the word out.”
On the other end of the line was a newspaper reporter from Al Riyadh. At least now I believed that I would not disappear without a trace. When the Mutawa, the traffic police officers, and my brother returned, we went inside the station. I was surprised to find the traffic police colonel waiting for us. I now was the only woman among six men.
With the workday over, the station was empty. The phones were silent. There were no fingers typing on keyboards, no papers being shuffled and restacked on desks; the only sounds were our footsteps as the colonel led us to his office. He unlocked the door and turned on the lights. When everyone was seated, he looked at the Mutawa and asked, “What’s going on?”
The men told him to ask my Wali al-Amr, meaning my male legal guardian. They assumed it was my brother. This is the standard treatment for Saudi women. We are expected to sit in silence while our male keepers speak for us, act for us, and ultimately decide for us. But I had not come this far to stay silent.
“He’s my little brother,” I said. “I should be his guardian.”
The Mutawa were shocked. I’m sure they wanted to slap me.
I explained to the colonel what had happened, and asked why, when this was a traffic disagreement, the Mutawa were involved.
“Do you know that what you did is illegal?” the colonel asked.
“Sir,” I replied, “I did not violate any traffic code. According to Section 32 of the Traffic Statute, there is no gender specification in the driver’s license application. In fact, there is nothing in the statute anywhere that says women can’t drive.”
He leaned back in his chair. “You can cite the statute?”
“Yes. I’ve been studying the code for days, sir.”
He sat still for a moment, silently assessing me. Finally he said, “Well, you need a Saudi license to drive here.”
“Sir, true, but,” I said, without blinking, “I am allowed to use my valid foreign driver’s license for up to three months until I get a Saudi one.” I reached into my bag and handed him my completed driver’s license application, glad I had been carrying it with me. I could nearly hear the colonel think, Oh my God, who the hell is this woman?
Waving his hand as if he were shooing off flies, the colonel said, “Put your papers away.” Then, turning to question my brother, he asked, “Did you give her the keys?”
“Yes, I did,” my brother answered calmly. “I am fine with her driving.”
“Are you for women driving?”
My brother was no longer just my brother at that moment, he was my friend and my ally. He told the colonel that as a petroleum geoscientist, he is often stationed in remote locations for weeks or longer, far away from his family. Because his wife can’t drive, she’s stranded. They don’t have a driver and he doesn’t trust a stranger around his pretty young wife and child. His car sits parked outside his home, worthless. Once, his wife got very sick and suffered for days until he returned.
“So, yes,” my brother answered, “I totally support women driving in this country.”
Looking over, I could see the clenched jaws of the Mutawa.
The colonel left the room to make a phone call. I turned to my brother, tilting back in my chair to face him, when one of the Mutawa snapped, “Look how you are sitting! Change how you sit! Behave!”
And so began the five hours my brother and I would spend at that station.
My bag was confiscated. We were taken to another room, and this one had a landline. I wanted to use it to check on my precious Aboudi. It was nearly bedtime. I wanted him to hear his mother’s voice wish him sweet dreams, so he might sleep soundly after everything that had happened. But when I asked to use it, the phone was ripped from the wall and taken away.
The day had long since ended. My brother and I performed our evening prayers as officials from different authorities began arriving at the station. We could hear their voices and the clipped sounds of their shoes as they moved across the hard, slick floor.
“Manal, they’re planning something,” my brother said in a low voice. He motioned with his eyes toward a few men who wore no uniforms. They were standing slightly apart and spoke only among themselves, monitoring everything else.
“Are those the Dababees?” I asked him under my breath.
“Yes,” he said grimly. It’s a nickname Saudis use for the Mabahith, the “domestic intelligence agency,” or secret police. Dababee literally means pushpin or tack—something with a sharp point that can stab you in an instant.
Panic was beginning to creep into my voice. “Why, why, why, why are they here?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “Let’s not even talk about it.”
After some time, the colonel reappeared and introduced me to the chief of the Khobar Police. “Aren’t you Manal of June 17?” he asked.
So the head of the police knew about Women2Drive.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Why didn’t you wait until then? Why did you drive now?”
“There is no traffic code banning women from driving,” I said. How many times had I repeated that line? He didn’t reply, so I asked, “May I go now?”
“Not until we get orders from the governor’s office.”
“What?” I asked.
“We can’t release you until we get approval from the governor.”
I resumed sitting in silence. There was no reply I could make.
Around 10:00 p.m., the provincial governor’s office finally sent over a pledge for me to sign: I, Manal al-Sharif, will never drive on Saudi land ever again and I will stop the event on June 17.
The police chief asked that the part about June 17 be removed, and the governor’s office reissued the pledge. Now it simply said: I, Manal al-Sharif, will never drive on Saudi land ever again.
I looked at the pledge, at the blank lines awaiting my brother’s signature and mine. I hadn’t eaten. I hadn’t slept. My throat was hoarse. I wanted to see my son. It would have been so easy to sign it and leave.
“I don’t accept this,” I said. “I broke no code.” I made sure to speak slowly so they couldn’t miss my words.
“You . . . you have to sign it,” the police chief gently urged.
“If I don’t?”
“Then I fear we will have to hold you in detention until you do.” I think at that moment the police chief was very worried about precisely that.
“Sir, I broke no statute,” I said again. “Tell me now what code I broke, and I will sign. What code did I break?”
After a minute he said softly, “You broke orf.” In Saudi society, orf means tradition or custom, a practice or convention. It is not the official code.
I turned to the chief and said very deliberately, “I want to hear both of you say it, please repeat it.”
“You broke orf,” the chief stated.
“Say it again.”