Manal al-Sharif
| Manal al-Sharif منال الشريف |
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| Born |
Manal Masoud Almonemi al-Sharif 25 April 1979 Mecca, Saudi Arabia |
| Occupation | Computer Scientist,Saudi Aramco |
| Known for | Defying female driving ban in Saudi Arabia |
| Children | 2 sons (born c. 2005 and 2014) |
 Q&A interview with al-Sharif on her book Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening, July 16, 2017, C-SPAN
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Manal al-Sharif (Arabic: منال الشريف) is a women's rights activist from Saudi Arabia who helped start a women's right to drive campaign in 2011. A women's rights activist who had previously filmed herself driving, Wajeha al-Huwaider, filmed al-Sharif driving a car as part of the campaign. The video was posted on YouTube and Facebook. Al-Sharif was detained and released on 21 May and rearrested the following day. On 30 May, al-Sharif was released on bail, on the conditions of returning for questioning if requested, not driving and not talking to the media.The New York Times and Associated Press associated the women's driving campaign with the wider pattern of the Arab Spring and the long duration of al-Sharif's detention with Saudi authorities' fear of protests.
Following her driving campaign, al-Sharif remained an active critic of the Saudi government, tweeting on issues including imprisoned female foreign workers, the lack of elections for the Shura Council, and the murder of Lama al-Ghamdi. Her work has been recognized by Foreign Policy, Time, and the Oslo Freedom Forum.
Manal al-Sharif graduated from King Abdulaziz University with a Bachelor of Science in computing and a Cisco Career Certification. Until May 2012, she worked as an Information Security Consultant for Saudi Aramco, the Saudi national oil company. She also wrote for Alhayat, a Saudi daily. al-Sharif's first book, Daring to Drive: a Saudi Woman's Awakening, was published in the US and the Commonwealth in June 2017 by Simon & Schuster. It will also be available in German, Arabic and Portuguese. She resides in Australia, married to a Brazilian, with a three-year-old son.
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