KSA princess tweets: Female driver's lashing sentence lifted

A Saudi court's sentence of 10 lashings on a woman driving in the conservative kingdom has been revoked - and the news was spread via Twitter by no less than a Saudi princess. Princess Ameerah Al-Taweel tweeted she was happy and thankful that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah revoked the sentence. "Thank God, the lashing of Shaima is cancelled. Thanks to our beloved King. I'm sure all Saudi women will be so happy, I know I am," she said in her tweet. In a later tweet, she said she and husband Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal spoke with the woman and she was happy. "The King's orders washed the fears I lived with after this unjust sentence," the princess quoted the woman as saying (http://twitter.com/#!/AmeerahAltaweel/status/119156807502536704). Earlier, a Saudi court found one Shaima Jastaina guilty for driving without the government’s permission. Tech site Mashable cited an earlier statement from Saudi Women for Driving that said Jastaina holds an international driver’s license and claims she had been driving her car because a family member was sick and had to be taken to the hospital. The sentencing itself came two days after King Abdullah, who is considered a reformer within his ultraconservative kingdom, declared that Saudi women would have the right to vote and run in local elections by 2015, Mashable added. A separate article on Forbes.com said Prince Alwaleed had registered his opposition to the punishment with Forbes and also with the King. “I lobbied the government and the King all the way. The reform path moves on, regardless of some voices here and there," Forbes quoted Alwaleed as saying in a text message. — TJD, GMA News