Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — Saudi King Abdullah has long kept women drivers from military facilities.

An opposition group released an order by Abdullah that banned women from driving within two hospitals operated by the National Guard.

The Institute for Gulf Affairs said the ban by Abdullah, then crown prince and issued more than a decade ago, came in response to a campaign by women to be allowed to drive automobiles.

“My master, His royal highness crown prince, deputy prime minister and commander of the National Guards — may God protect him — has learned that a group of women workers in the National Guards hospitals were allowed to drive cars inside the complex of King Fahd Hospital in Riyad, and King Khaled Hospital in Jedda,” the document, dated April 13, 2012, said. “This has extremely bothered my master, and he — may God protect him — has ordered to ban this practice completely.”

The April 2002 document, released on Oct. 27, was signed by Abdullah’s
son, Prince Mitab, commander of the National Guard. The institute said the
two military hospitals had allowed women to drive in battery-operated carts
through the vast complexes.

“The document signed by Saudi King Abdullah’s son Mitab details the
king’s anger at reports of female healthcare staff driving battery operated
carts to move between the wings of the vast national guard’s hospitals in
Riyad and Jedda,” the institute said. “The Saudi monarchy bans women from
driving and many other basic rights like organized sports and fitness
activities.”

The document was released amid a renewed campaign by Saudi women to
drive in the Gulf Cooperation Council kingdom. On Oct. 26, Saudi authorities
fined at least 16 women who defied the kingdom’s ban on female drivers.

  Institute for Gulf Affairs, King Abdullah, King Fahd Hospital, King Khaled Hospital, Prince Mitab, Saudi king bans female hospital workers from driving golf carts