RIYADH — Two Saudi women said they drove their cars on
Wednesday in a new protest against a ban on women driving in the conservative
Muslim kingdom.

Their actions came in response to a call on the Internet for
women in Riyadh to get behind the wheel, after a show of defiance on Friday in
which 42 women took to the road.

Iman al-Nafjan, in her thirties, said she had driven
Wednesday, just as she has done “every day since last Friday,”  despite a harassing message stuck to
the windscreen of her mother’s car.

The handwritten note read “Plz do not drive” on
one side and carried an insult on the other.

“This threat will not stop me,” Nafjan said.

Sara al-Khalidi also said she has been driving since
Friday’s protest, saying she had driven again on Wednesday before being stopped
by a traffic policeman, who told her that she had been the subject of six
complaints and that she should drive home without stopping.

However, she said that “people encourage me when
they’ve seen me driving these last few days.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and German
Chancellor Angela Merkel have both expressed support for Saudi women who wish
to drive.

No law forbids women from driving in Saudi Arabia but a
religious edict stipulates that women must be driven by a male chauffeur or
family member.