'As a feminist, I'm on the front line'.

• Author: Huwaider, Wajeha al-
• Position: SAUDI ARABIA

I WAS BORN AND RAISED IN THE Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As a feminist, I have chosen to be on the front line against women's oppression because I'm driven by beliefs in justice and my love for my country.

Late September was a historic time .for women in Saudi Arabia as King Abdullah surprised the world by granting Saudi women the right to vote and to run as candidates in the next municipal elections, in 2015. Also, they were given the opportunity to serve as full members of the king's shura council, eighteen months from now.

The king didn't insist on the immediate implementation of his decrees because he wanted to dampen the reaction of the extremists, who believe that there are only two places for women to occupy in the world: their homes and their graves. Men with that kind of ideology are similar to the Saudi young men who carried out the September 11 attacks.

Saudi Arabia is one of the world's most closed societies. It is controlled by the extremist Wahhabis who treat women as property. After September 11, Westerners, especially, became rather concerned about the Wahhabis' influence on people because many madrassas (religious schools) and mosques in the world were built and funded by Saudi oil money to spread Wahhabism, the rigid version of Islam. After 9/11, the Saudi government reacted defensively to repair its image. On the other side, Saudi activists and reformers began to push for more justice, freedom, and equality.

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In 2002, I had a weekly column in three local newspapers. One of them was the English Arab News. They allowed me to use my real name but not to show my picture. At that time, Saudi women were not allowed to show their faces in the media or to attend any press conferences. (For four decades, there was only one TV program on the Saudi official channel for women to watch. It was designed to educate women on how to be good mothers and loyal wives.)

My time in the limelight lasted only a year before the Saudi censors banned me from writing, in August 2003. The Saudi authorities never communicated this to me directly, but one by one the editors of each publication rejected my pieces. Then an editor informed me privately that he had received instructions from the Ministry of Information to cease carrying my articles.

I was left with one option, which was to publish my articles on the Internet. There were fewer readers for my Internet articles than for my newspaper columns, because the Internet was popular...