Saudi Arabia has announced that it will allow female athletes to compete in the London Olympic games, which begin on July 27.
The tradition-breaking decision was announced by the Saudi Embassy in London, saying "the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wishes to reaffirm its support for the sublime meanings reflected by Olympic Games and the cherished values of excellence, friendship and respect that they represent."
It added that women who qualify for the games will be issued a ticket to London, but it is not clear if any Saudi female athlete will be ready at such short notice.
It will be for the first time that the conservative Gulf Kingdom extending this privilege to their female athletes, who have been discouraged from participating in sports events to prevent exposure in front of a mixed-gender crowd.
Saudi Arabia has been the last holdout denying women the opportunity to take part in the world's biggest sports event.
While all other countries were sending men and women to compete, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei were sending only men, including at the 2008 Beijing Games. Earlier this year, Qatar and Brunei too ended the precedence.
A Qatari shooter, swimmer and a runner will compete in the women's category this year, while the lone woman representing Brunei will be a hurdler.
Women in Saudi Arabia are sidelined in many platforms of social life. Under the government's male guardianship system, women cannot work, study, marry, leave the country, open bank accounts or access health care without the permission of a male guardian - a father, husband, or even a son.
A restriction on voting and holding public office is expected to end in 2015.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) welcomed the decision as an "important step forward," but noted that it is insufficient in addressing the systemic barriers to women playing sports in the Kingdom.
As documented in its report "Steps of the Devil," HRW said Saudi Arabia's policy towards women and sport reflects the predominant conservative view that opening sports to women and girls will lead to immorality: "steps of the devil," as one prominent religious scholar put it. Prince Nawaf al-Faisal, the Saudi Sports Minister and head of the Saudi National Olympic Committee, said at a news conference in Jeddah on April 4 that, "female sports activity has not existed [in the Kingdom] and there is no move thereto in this regard.
There have been widespread calls on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to uphold the values of the Olympic Charter and condition Saudi Arabia's participation in the London 2012 Olympics on the country taking steps to end discrimination against women in sports.
IOC had been pressing Saudi Arabia to allow women to compete and act as officials in the Olympic Games, which the international community considers a prestige.
In 1964, apartheid-era South Africa was banned from the Tokyo Olympics for racial discrimination. Taliban-run Afghanistan was banned from the 2000 Sydney Olympics for denying women the right to practise sports.
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