VOGUE ATTACKED FOR ‘TONE-DEAF’ STORY ON PRINCESS DRIVING

Vogue magazine has been criticized for publishing a front cover featuring a Saudi princess at the wheel of a car, while activists who campaigned for an end to a ban on women driving are held in jail. The Vogue Arabia June issue shows Princess Hayfa bint Abdullah Al Saud in the front seat of a convertible with the headline Driving Force: celebrating the trailblazing women of Saudi Arabia. The cover was intended to mark the June 24 end of a ban on women driving, but follows arrests of activists in the ultra-conservative country. “A Saudi princess is on the cover of Vogue Arabia to celebrate women finally being allowed to drive,” wrote one social media user. “Yet, her family is currently jailing the pioneering women that actually fought for that right.” One Saudi activist described the cover as “tone deaf.”