This is absolutely incredible. Saudi Arabia has never sent a female athlete to the Olympic Games (Ditto Qatar and Brunei). "Ban Urged on Saudi Arabia Over Discrimination" Another in a long list of examples of the discrimination prevalent in Saudi Arabia against women.
The IOC withdrew it's invitation to South Africa to compete in the 1964 Summer Olympics because it refused to send a racially integrated team and the IOC need to follow suit again. New Zealand Football should cancel the two friendlies the Oly Whites are due to play later this month against the Saudi national team as the beginning of a sporting and cultural isolation.
Why is apartheid in South Africa unacceptable and yet the status of women in Saudi Arabia as second class citizens okay? (Let's hope the difference isn't oil)
See IOC/Saudi Arabia: End Ban on Women in Sport for more info from Human Rights Watch.
This slightly older pragmatist thinks that maybe first has to come the changes promised by the HOS re greater political participation which did include women too (not sure how it will play out) and then let them use that power to demand more things. Once they had this in SA then all sorts of previously closed doors were opened in sport.
ReplyDeletePlus the feisty women of SA are testing their country right now over restricted access in driving. A friend who was recently there said it is a hot topic for women she met there.