The Saudi Women for Driving released the series of advertisements to promote a Change.org petition that asks automobile company Subaru to pull out of Saudi Arabia until the driving ban is overturned. The “Stop Subaru in Saudi” ads (pictured above) say, “Subaru must show their values and stop selling cars in Saudi Arabia, where women aren’t allowed to drive.” The petition itself, which launched last week, points out that the company sponsors women-centric events, including surf festivals and the U.S. Women’s Triathlon Series. “But while Subaru is marketed heavily at women, your company is simultaneously making millions selling cars in the only country on earth where women aren’t allowed to drive,” the petition says.

The women’s driving coalition has also produced a series of t-shirts, fliers, bumper stickers and ribbons meant to encourage other Saudi women to exercise their right to drive. The group plans to distribute the items quietly throughout Saudi cities, and it has also uploaded a T-shirt design for anyone to download. The design (below) says, “Yes to women driving” in Arabic.

The driving campaign continues after five Saudi women driving in the city of Jeddah were arrested Tuesday. These were the first arrests reported after Saudi women began driving on June 17, the day the Women2Drive campaign — which spread through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter — called for Saudi women to get behind the wheel. It appears at least four of the women, who had been traveling in one car, have been released, though details of their case are still not fully confirmed. The whereabouts of the fifth woman, who was arrested separately, may still be unknown. An email from Benjamin Joffe-Walt, human rights editor at Change.org, says, “We assume that if this woman were still in custody that her family would have contacted local media.”

Though no written laws prevent Saudi women from driving, clerical rulings — following Wahabism, a strict form of Islam — have been interpreted as a ban typically enforced by religious police. Rumors about punishments for female drivers, as well as rumors about King Abdullah deciding to overturn the ban, have swirled since Saudi women began driving, but none have proven true so far.

Meanwhile, some Saudi women are continuing to drive even past the original date of June 17, tweeting and posting YouTube videos to share their experiences. The #Women2Drive hashtag also continues to maintain an active presence on Twitter.

Homepage image courtesy of Flickr, David Villarreal Fernández

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ABC News says the women, who were arrested while driving in the coastal city of Jeddah, were released after signing a pledge declaring that they won’t drive again. Their legal male guardians were also required to sign the pledge.

A tweet from independent journalist Caryle Murphy, based in Saudi’s capital Riyadh, also says at least four of the arrested women were released after several hours.

The women were arrested Tuesday in two separate incidents. Four of them were arrested while driving through the Dorat Al Aroos area of Jeddah. Later that night, a woman driving in downtown Jeddah was said to have been surrounded by four police cars before being taken into custody. The Saudi Women for Driving — a coalition of Saudi women’s rights activists — launched a Change.org petition in response to the arrests, calling for the women to be released.

The defiance against the driving ban is linked to the Women2Drive movement, which began spreading its message through social networks like Facebook and Twitter around two months ago. The campaign called for Saudi women to drive their own cars on June 17. There are no written laws preventing women from driving in Saudi Arabia, but religious edicts — that follow Wahabism, a strict form of Islam — have been interpreted as a ban. Religious police are the ones who typically enforce the driving rules.

The Jeddah arrests were the first to be reported since women starting driving on June 17, even though Manal al-Sherif — a key organizer — was arrested and detained for nine days last month after posting a video of herself driving on YouTube. Al-Sherif also pledged that she would no longer drive once she was released. Meanwhile, the women who have been driving since June 17 have been tweeting and posting YouTube videos marking the occasion. While a few women were stopped and while at least one received a ticket, none were arrested before Tuesday.

Just a couple of hours before reports of the Jeddah women’s release began to come out, Change.org’s Human Rights Editor Benjamin Joffe-Walt told Mashable: “It seems the police were waiting for international attention to slowly peter out before cracking down on women attempting to drive. What’s clear is that the high levels of international support for this campaign is helping.”

The campaign has received support from a number of high profile politicians and diplomats, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the European Union’s Catherine Ashton and a number of U.S. Congresswomen.

Meanwhile, #Women2Drive remains an active hashtag on Twitter, where Saudi women continue to tweet about their attempts to drive.

Image courtesy of yfrog/Mai AL-Shareef

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According to a statement from the Saudi Women for Driving, one incident was first reported on Facebook by Saudi journalist Jamal Banoon. Four women driving through the city of Jeddah on Tuesday were arrested by agents representing Saudi’s religious police: the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. The women were reportedly taken to a criminal investigations unit.

The second incident also took place in Jeddah later on Tuesday night. The Saudi Women for Driving’s statement indicates that four police cars surrounded a woman who was driving through the city’s downtown area. The woman was taken into custody for driving. Her car was confiscated, according to Saudi news site SABQ. The status of the arrested women is presently unknown.

The Saudi Women for Driving have launched a petition on online activism platform Change.org, asking for the women’s immediate release. The petition, which has more than 74,000 signatures at the time of writing, says: “We call on King Abdullah, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, to immediately release all five women, who were doing absolutely nothing wrong and driving in accordance with Saudi traffic laws.”

The Saudi Arabian ban on female drivers is not enforced due to any written law, but religious rulings by clerics have prevented women — Saudi and foreign, alike — from driving throughout the country. According to the Saudi coalition’s petition, “King Abdullah… declared in 2007 that the issue of women driving cars is a social issue, not a religious matter, and therefore subject to the rule of the state, which means that in theory if the community wanted to lift the ban on women driving there would be no obstacle.”

The Social Media Behind Women2Drive

These are the first reports of arrests since women began driving on June 17, as part of the Women2Drive movement, which caught momentum on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Though Manal al-Sherif, a key figure in the movement, was arrested and detained for a few days after posting a video of herself driving on YouTube in May, women who began driving on June 17 were able to do so without much incident. Some tweeted and posted YouTube videos, documenting their driving.

Many continued driving even after June 17, and some tweets from Tuesday indicate that some Saudi women were still driving the same day the Jeddah arrests took place. One Twitter user, @Reemalshahri, said: “my sister just drove her 3 daughters to Rashid mall and got a big applaud by people gathering in parking lot.”

On Monday, prior to the incidents that led to arrests, @khadijapatel tweeted: “Friend in Jeddah just sent me a text saying she’s driven herself to her uncle’s home ‘and no one caught me’.”

The campaign against the ban has received quite a bit of international support, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton breaking her silence on the matter last week by calling Saudi women brave. U.S. Congresswomen have also tweeted their support, and Catherine Ashton — the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy — has also issued a statement in favor of the campaign.

But while the Women2Drive movement does have Saudi and international support, it has met some opposition within its own country — even prior to the Jeddah arrests. Twitter was buzzing at the end of last week, as Saudi users said mosques were putting up posters decrying women drivers. As Arab News reported, posters distributed through the capital, Riyadh, claimed it is taboo in Islam for women to drive. Now a tweet from Ahmed Al Omran (@ahmed), a social media intern at NPR, is being retweeted throughout Twitter. The tweet cites a cleric who says women driving is not “haram,” meaning forbidden, but dangerous along the lines of arms dealing.

Image courtesy of Flickr, smemon87

More Stories About Women2Drive

• Saudi Women Drive Again as European Union Offers Support
• Saudi Women Petition Subaru To Leave Country Over Driving Ban
• Hillary Clinton Throws Support Behind Saudi Women2Drive Movement
• Nancy Pelosi & Colleagues Tweet Support for Saudi Women2Drive Campaign
• Saudis Use Social Media To Document Campaign for Women’s Right To Drive
• Saudi Women Ready To Defy Driving Ban, Fueled by Social Media
• Saudi Woman Behind Social Media Driving Campaign Released From Detention
• Saudi Woman Arrested After Posting Online Clip of Herself Driving [VIDEO]

More About: facebook, Saudi Arabia, saudi driving ban, social media, twitter, women2drive, youtube

For more Social Media coverage:

• Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Social Media channel
• Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad