RIYADH, June 25 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia will allow its women athletes
to compete in the Olympic Games for the first time ever in London this
summer, the Islamic kingdom's London embassy said on its website.
Human
rights groups had called on the International Olympic Committee to bar
Saudi Arabia from competing in London, citing its failure ever to send
a woman athlete to the Olympics and its ban on sports in girls' state
schools.
Powerful Muslim clerics in the
ultra-conservative state have repeatedly spoken out against the
participation of girls and women in sports.
"I
think this is a victory for Saudi sportswomen and hopefully it will
promote sports and women's health awareness for the Saudi society,"
said Lina al-Maeena, co-founder of Jeddah United Sports Company, a rare
women's exercise club that runs a female basketball team.
In
Saudi Arabia women have a lower legal status than men, are banned from
driving and need a male guardian's permission to work, travel or open a
bank account.
Under King Abdullah, however, the
government has pushed for them to have better education and work
opportunities and will allow them to vote in future municipal
elections, the only public polls held in the kingdom.
Saudi
women will be able to compete in the London Olympics only if they
reach the qualifying standard for their event, and the Games opens in
just over one month, on July 27.
"The kingdom of
Saudi Arabia is looking forward to its complete participation in the
London 2012 Olympic Games through the Saudi Arabian Olympic Committee,
which will oversee the participation of women athletes who can qualify
for the Games," said a statement published on the embassy website.
The
woman most likely to compete under the Saudi flag in London, show
jumper Dalma Malhas, was ruled out on Monday when the World Equestrian
Federation (FEI) said the 20-year-old's mare Caramell KS had been
sidelined by injury for a month during the qualifying period and had
missed a June 17 deadline.
"Regretfully the Saudi
Arabian rider Dalma Rushdi Malhas has not attained the minimum
eligibility standards and ... will not be competing" at the London
Olympics, FEI secretary general Ingmar De Vos told the FEI website
(www.fei.org).
Malhas won individual bronze at the junior Olympics in Singapore in 2010, but without official support or recognition.
In
April the head of the General Presidency of Youth Welfare, which
regulates sport in Saudi Arabia, said it would not prevent women from
competing but they would not have official government endorsement.
The
government's role would be limited to ensuring that Saudi women's
participation "is in the proper framework and in conformity with
sharia", he said.
The IOC said on Monday that
talks with the Saudis were "ongoing" and that "we are working to ensure
the participation of Saudi women at the Games in London".
The
head of the kingdom's Olympic mission, Khalid al-Dakheel, told Reuters
on Sunday that he was unaware of any developments allowing women to
participate.
Top Saudi clerics, who hold
government positions and have always constituted an important support
base for the ruling al-Saud royal family, have spoken against female
participation in sports.
In 2009 a senior cleric said girls risked losing their virginity by tearing their hymen if they took part in energetic sport.
Physical
education is banned in girls' state schools in the kingdom, but Saudi
Arabia's only female deputy minister, Noura al-Fayez, has written to
Human Rights Watch saying there is a plan to introduce it.
(Reporting by Angus McDowall and Asma Alsharif; editing by Tim Pearce)