Saudi Arabia: Why a stern reporter was almost arrested – and audacity wins

Making-of is the name of our new format. We want to give you a personal look behind the scenes, tell you about our everyday journalistic life and our research. We’re starting a little series looking back at our moments in 2023.

I was glad that my colleague in Saudi Arabia was now legally allowed to drive, because the day had been long and we still had a two-hour drive back ahead of us. We work on foreign research as star-Reporters usually work with local photographers. This has irresistible advantages: They have contacts, speak the language, know the circumstances and can help us out of trouble. Problems can be avoided this way. Mostly.

In Ta’if, a city deep in the Saudi mountains, Our team of two visited the training camp of the women’s national soccer team. The players proudly told us what was now possible for them in this country: traveling, living alone, kicking a ball, or even driving a car.

Unfortunately, our photographer headed for a police checkpoint, where the picture of Saudi feminism ended up with a few big scratches. The officer saw: a white blonde. And a young woman who was wearing an abaya – the Arab overdress – but not a headscarf. That in itself is absolutely permissible in the kingdom. In the evening riad I saw many women with flowing hair. Only a desert road is not Riyadh, quite Saudi Arabia often a legal gray area, as people kept telling me, and a reporter isn’t always prepared for every scenario.

The policeman checked our passports. He kept pointing at me. The Arabic I had absorbed in rap songs and on German city streets was enough to understand what he was shouting: “Almani, haram!” A German and a Saudi woman together in a car? Unrelated? Not related by marriage? Not married? He didn’t like that at all. He called his superior.

Audacity wins, experienced colleagues once told me

Scenes of the diplomatic steps to be taken immediately played in my head: I would call the German embassy. They would notify the Foreign Office. That would be the case with his counterpart Riyadh report. And then you would give in there. “German reporter arrested in Saudi Arabia” is not a pleasant headline for a ruling family that is trying to polish up its battered international image, I thought. Old reporters, experienced in areas of the world that are more unfriendly to journalists, once told me that boldness often wins in such situations.

The next most senior officer came to the driver’s window with a diabolical grin. Our photographer would later translate to me that she was bluffing uninhibitedly at that moment. We were here at the invitation of the Sports Minister himself, she said, acting as if she had an ace journalist next to her. But it was just me sitting there, intimidated and sheepish. The policeman continued to smile. He showed us some arrest swipe on his phone from some alleged couple who were supposed to have been picked up here sometime recently for the same offense. He openly threatened to be arrested.

My rescuer behind the wheel spotted a poster on the wall. On it the logo of “Vision 2030”. This is how Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is paving his way away from the ultra-conservative oil state towards a modern, at least economically diverse society in the Gulf. A country where women can play football and sit behind the wheel next to a man without being married. The photographer pointed to the poster. “This is supposed to be your Vision 2030?” she shouted. It was the magic word. The two police officers looked at each other puzzled – and let us drive on.