BURAIDAH, Saudi Arabia—At the stroke of midnight Sunday, Saudi women drove legally in their own country for the first time, a historic moment that was met with a mix of joy and disbelief but also consternation over the jailing of activists who had campaigned for just such a right.
As soon as the driving ban officially lifted, women from Riyadh to Jeddah to the kingdom’s more conservative corners slid into driver’s seats to celebrate the end to a policy that prohibited women from obtaining a driver’s license. The change removed one of the most restrictive rules that consigned women to the status of second-class citizens in Saudi Arabia.
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“We achieved history today,” said Aljohara al-Wabli, 54 years old, who at 12:01 a.m. local time drove her son’s Toyota FJ Cruiser onto the streets of the desert city of Buraidah, deep in Saudi Arabia’s conservative heartland. “I have no words to describe how I feel.”
Ms. al-Wabli, who drove down the city’s main boulevard, blasted a tune from her iPhone called “Long Live King Salman”—the reigning monarch—and tapped her fingers on the wheel.
Despite their newfound right, Saudi women are still far from equal to men. They are still legally required to have a male guardian, whose permission they need to travel abroad or marry. Few occupy senior positions in government.
The ban’s lifting, first announced by the government in September, is the most visible sign of social change in a country where Islamic conservatism and tribal traditions have long dominated public life. It caps a decadeslong struggle led by Saudi women in the only country where, until Sunday, women were barred from driving.
“I never thought I would live to see this day,” said Rama Naseef, a 28-year-old restaurant owner from Jeddah, who got in her husband’s black Range Rover with her three sisters. The four women, accompanied by their brother, drove along the seashore of the Saudi port city, crossing paths with three other women drivers.
Saudi billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal joined his daughter Reem for her maiden car ride in the Riyadh, the Saudi capital. “Reem is among the first women to drive in Saudi Arabia,” he said proudly in a video he shared on Twitter. Three of his granddaughters sat at the back.
The change is part of a program to liberalize the kingdom and overhaul its oil-dependent economy championed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler. Allowing women to drive themselves will make it easier and less expensive for women to get to work. Moving them into the mainstream economy is seen as a key reason behind the government’s decision.
The government ended the ban despite resistance from those who oppose women driving on religious or cultural grounds. Some staunch conservatives argue driving could lead women to behave sinfully and expose them to harassment. Some men have vowed to target women who dare get behind the wheel.
In the wake of such threats, the Saudi government implemented an antiharassment law earlier this month.
Yet even as he has ushered in new social freedoms, Prince Mohammed has also suppressed dissent. His security forces have jailed a range of perceived opponents, from religious clerics who opposed relaxing the kingdom’s social strictures to liberal activists who had campaigned for women’s right to drive.
In May, weeks before the ban’s lifting, some of the most prominent of these advocates were arrested and branded as traitors in state-aligned media. Out of the 17 activists and intellectuals who were initially detained in the crackdown, nine remain in jail after having admitted to charges such as cooperating with “hostile elements abroad,” according to Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor’s office. Two more female activists were arrested earlier this month, and many more are banned from traveling outside the kingdom, according to Human Rights Watch.
Despite ending the female driving ban, the current political climate has created some ambivalence among activists toward the milestone. “They want us to take their reforms as gifts, without questions,” said one Saudi female activist. “They don’t want us to reflect on these changes or to remember the past.”
Those jailed include Loujain al-Hathloul, 28, who in 2014 tried to drive her car across the border into Saudi Arabia from the United Arab Emirates, an act of defiance that turned her into a face of the grass-roots driving movement. Other older activists who remain detained include Aziza al-Yousef, a retired university professor who played an important role in group protests in 2011 and 2013.
In the early hours of Sunday, women from across the kingdom posted on social media photos and videos of themselves driving, amid a heavy presence of police cars in major cities. In Jeddah, traffic police handed out flowers to women who drove past.
Parking reserved for women has been already introduced in several malls, hospitals and other public spaces. Road signs are beginning to change to address female as well as male drivers. “We wish you continued safety,” said one banner from the traffic department addressed to female drivers.
Write to Margherita Stancati at margherita.stancati@wsj.com and Donna Abdulaziz at donna.abdulaziz@wsj.com