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		Call for driving ban on Saudi men Friday, 31st March 2006 In a remarkable move today, four MEPs, including East Midlands MEP Roger Helmer and Anna Zaborska, Chairman of the European Parliament's influential Women's Committee, have launched a campaign to ban Saudi Arabian men from driving in all EU countries. They have done so to highlight the continuing ban on Saudi women driving in their own country, which the MEPs claim is a blatant example of discrimination, an attack on women's rights, and totally at odds with civilised values. They argue that a move to ban male Saudi nationals from driving in the EU would help the Saudi authorities to understand the very strong condemnation evoked in Europe by the Saudi ban on women drivers. The MEPs have sponsored a "Written Declaration" in the European parliament in Brussels, a motion which is available for all MEPs to sign, and which becomes a formal resolution of the parliament if at least half of all MEPs (316) sign up to it. The sponsors of the Declaration are Anna Zaborska (Christian Democrat, Slovakia), Roger Helmer (Conservative, East Midlands); Ashley Mote (Independent, South East); and Jim Allister (Democratic Unionist, Northern Ireland). Speaking at the launch of the declaration, Mr Helmer said "The nationals of authoritarian countries assume that they can come to the West and enjoy our freedoms, while maintaining discrimination and denying basic human rights at home. This initiative should help to convince them that freedom is a two-way street and that their own people are also entitled to basic human rights".