Saudi Arabian women celebrate end of driving ban: 'The country will never be the same again'

Activists who have campaigned against the ban express joy

What was an act of defiance in March 2014 – when this photo of a woman driving in Riyadh was taken – will soon be legal (AP)

Women in Saudi Arabia have been celebrating the kingdom lifting its ban on female drivers, an historic victory that capped years of advocacy.

The announcement came in the form of a royal decree that was reported by the state-run Saudi Press Agency and state TV - with the order saying the changes required to allow women to drive should be implemented by June 2018.

Activists who have faced being detained for getting behind the wheel took to Twitter to celebrate. Manal Masoul al-Sharif, who drew international attention for filming herself driving, wrote that “Saudi Arabia will never be the same again”.

An activist who was detained along with Ms al-Sharif and then jailed for months, Maysaa al-Amoudi, cited a “very long list” of men and women who had fought for “the rights of others”.

Loujain Halthoul, who has been repeatedly arrested for defying the driving ban, was more concise. “Praise be to Allah”, she tweeted.

Much of the reaction took the form of praise for the activists in the vanguard of winning the right to drive. A 35-year-old event planner named Marwa Afandi told Reuters that the announcement was “amazing”.

“Congratulations to all my ladies, this is a real victory”, she said.

It was not just women celebrating. Numerous men took to social media to laud what they called a move toward greater gender equality in Saudi Arabia’s conservative society and praise the women who fought for the change.

An activist in Jeddah - Sahar Nassif - told the BBC she was “very, very excited - jumping up and down and laughing”.

“I'm going to buy my dream car, a convertible Mustang, and it's going to be black and yellow,” she said.