Women cannot begin to drive in Saudi Arabia, declared Mohammed Abdullah Al-Muhanna, head of the Shura council. He said that a report released by AP News Agency last Saturday on women being permitted to drive was "misinformed" and without "authenticity," according to aljazeera.com.

The AP News Agency's report had mentioned that a Saudi Arabian woman over 30 in a "conservative dress" but no make-up is now being allowed to drive. This was reported to be a recommendation of the Shura Council, or the formal advisory body to the state government, according to rtnews.com.

In contravention of the AP news, calling it a "hoax," and actually like another "joke" popularised by the social media in 2008, the alarabiya.net reported that in 2008, the Shura Council's "secret" recommendations were quoted by a member who wished to remain anonymous. The Shura Council is only consultative, not legislative.

Anyway, there are some interesting recommendations that seem to have been "revealed"---if they are true. The Shura Council perhaps knows how women can drive without having accidents or becoming "licentious." That is why the council had been believed to have come up with a number of strange recommendations, banning women below the age of 30 from becoming drivers. Women wearing make-up, or not dressing conservatively, could also not drive.

The report also "revealed" that a woman needed a "yes" from King Abdullah ibn Abdilazīz, and then the permission of her husband, father or other male guardian to be allowed. Her driving hours would be only between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. on Saturday through Wednesday, and from 12 noon to 8 p.m. on Thursday and Friday---the Saudi Arabian weekend.

More rules mentioned included a woman being allowed to navigate without a male guardian within the city, but requiring a man in the car if she ventured outside the borders. There seemed to be a record of a recommendation for a "female traffic department" to help a woman whose vehicle had broken down on the road, or who suffered sexual harassment.

AP declared that it had published facts from a council member who it said wanted to be anonymous and had revealed that the recommendations followed a "secret deliberation" that had not been officially made public. They were probably fraught with danger if revealed.

It said that the permission to drive should abide by a strict code of conduct following Sunni Islam called Wahhabism. The 150-member strong Shura Council had agreed to the rules after a long and painful campaign by Saudi Arabian women's groups, according to AP. It added that the Gulf State country with a population of 30 million has no state rule formally banning women from driving---only "religious edicts." After all, Muslim clerics fear that women who are permitted to drive may become "licentious."

However, the Shura Council has 30 female members for the first time since January 2014, which is why many people thought that it was considering the permission for women to drive. Activists have been campaigning for the freedom, in spite of threats from the government. Last year, more than 60 women protested on the streets, many of them putting up YouTube videos of themselves behind the drivers' seats.

Last November, a Kuwaiti woman was arrested in Saudi Arabia when she was "caught red-handed driving her diabetic father to a hospital. Now, after Mohammed Abdullah Al-Muhanna's condemnation of AP's "false" report, a number of women are reportedly dejected that their hopes are dashed.