Runaway Saudi woman in Bangkok Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun now under UNHCR care
A young Saudi woman who barricaded herself in a Bangkok hotel to avoid deportation was last night under the care of the UN.
A young Saudi woman who barricaded herself into a hotel room in Bangkok airport yesterday to avoid deportation to a family she says will kill her if she is returned to them was last night under the care of the UN refugee agency after a dramatic about-turn by Thai authorities.
Thai immigration police chief Surachet Hakpal told reporters in a late night press conference that Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun had been taken to a safe house by UNHCR officials and would remain under their care for around five days while her asylum claim was processed and a third resettlement country secured.
“She has the dilemma that if she goes home it will be dangerous for her so Thailand is ready to help. We are working with the foreign affairs ministry and UNHCR and today we will allow her to enter Thailand. UNHCR is now taking care of her and working on her asylum claim,” Major General Surachet said.
Hey I'm Rahaf. My father just arrived as I heard witch worried and scared me a lot and I want to go to another country that I seek asylum in
— Rahaf Mohammed ره٠مØمد القنون (@rahaf84427714) January 7, 2019
But at least I feel save now under UNHCR protection with the agreement of Thailand authorities. And I finally got my passport backðŸ™ðŸ»â¤ï¸ pic.twitter.com/pQER7HDVi7
While the woman’s father, a Saudi government official, was believed to have arrived in Thailand last night, General Surachet said it would be up to her whether she met with him or not.
The outcome, after a dramatic day in which the 18-year-old woman refused to leave a transit hotel room in Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport and tweeted regularly about her predicament to a viral international audience, came as a surprise after immigration authorities had earlier sought to deport her claiming she had tried to enter Thailand without a return ticket or hotel reservation.
Ms Alqunun denied the claim, saying officials had taken her passport on arrival in Bangkok from Kuwait where she had been holidaying with her family when she slipped away and escaped, and that she had intended only to transit through the airport en route to Australia where she hoped to claim asylum.
Ms Alqunun was granted a three-month Australian tourist visa online on December 6 which is valid for two years.
Thai officials had earlier claimed to have seized Ms Alqunun’s passport at the request of the Saudi government after being informed that she was a “runaway”, and also blocked UNHCR access to the woman, but later allowed UN officials to meet with the woman and assured them that Thailand would “not send anyone to their death”.
“She is now under the sovereignty of Thailand, no one and no embassy can force her to go anywhere. We will talk to her and do whatever she requests,” Major General Surachet said.
“She says she wants to go to Australia but to go to Australia you need to see if Australia will accept her or not,” he said.
The UNHCR confirmed they met with Ms Alqunun but would not comment further for confidentiality reasons.
Ms Alqunun’s increasingly desperate tweets yesterday as she faced deportation on an 11.15am flight to Kuwait, which included appeals to Australia, US, Canada, Germany, UK and Sweden for asylum, attracted international attention including from human rights groups and a Thai human rights lawyers organisation, which yesterday filed an injunction challenging her detention.
A Thai court later rejected the injunction, but lawyer Nadthaisiri Bergman told The Australian she would file an appeal today.
Ms Alqunun also posted a number of videos, including one showing furniture jammed in front of her hotel-room door, and another in which she says” “I’m not leaving my room until I see UNHCR. I want asylum.”
She has said she believes she will be killed if she is returned, and that her family had threatened in the past to kill her for trivial reasons. She told BBC’s News Hour early yesterday; “I don’t have rights in Saudi Arabia.
“My family treat me so bad. Yeah, they will kill me… because I shared my story and my pictures on social media and my father is so angry.”
The 18-year-old’s escape attempt from the repressive Middle Eastern kingdom — where women’s freedoms are severely restricted under the country’s strict guardianship laws — has played out on social media for several days, after she was met in the arrivals lounge at Bangkok airport at the weekend by an official who took her passport and promised to help her get a Thai visa.
Instead, he returned an hour later with other officials to inform her she would be returned to Kuwait and that her father — a senior government official in northern Saudi Arabia — was “very angry”.
Saudi Arabia’s Bangkok charge d’affaires Abdulilah al-Shouaibi denied Saudi officials had any role in her detention.
Saudi Arabia has weathered fierce criticism following the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside its Istanbul consulate on October 2.
The Canadian and German embassies are understood to have advocated strongly for Ms Alqunun. Australian embassy representatives in Bangkok told Agence France Press they had sought assurances that she would be able to access the “refugee status determination process”.
Human Rights Watch’s Phil Robertson said he was extremely concerned for Ms Alqunun’s safety if she was forced to return to her family given the level of impunity in Saudi Arabia in cases of honour-related violence.
Ms Alqunun told BBC News Hour early yesterday that she had made up her mind three years ago to escape Saudi Arabia.
She also claimed to have renounced Islam “because women don’t have rights in Islam”. Renouncing Islam in Saudi Arabia is considered a crime of apostasy that is punishable by death.
The young woman’s detention comes weeks after Melbourne-based Bahrainian footballer Hakeem al-Araibi was detained in Bangkok over an incorrectly issued Interpol Red Notice last month. He is in jail awaiting a court decision on his extradition.
Ms Alqunun’s case follows that of another young Saudi woman, Dina Ali Lasloom, who tried to flee to Australia in 2017 but was detained and forced — bound, gagged and screaming — onto a plane bound for Saudi Arabia.
Her fate since then is unknown.
Additional reporting: Pailin Chitprasertsuk
I seek protection in particular from the following country
— Rahaf Mohammed (@rahaf84427714) January 6, 2019
Canada/United States/ Australia /United kingdom, I ask any if it Representatives to contact me.
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