Fleeing Saudi girl locks herself in Thai airport hotel, pleas for asylum

A young Saudi woman fleeing her family in fear for her life has locked herself inside an airport hotel room in Bangkok, forcing Thailand to halt a plan to deport her.

The 18-year-old woman, who identified herself as Rahaf Mohammed Mutlaq al-Qunun on an unverified Twitter account, arrived in Thailand on Saturday evening from Kuwait, where she had managed to flee from her family. She told AFP that her family had subjected her to physical and psychological abuse.

Qunun was trying to reach Australia to seek asylum there but was stopped by Saudi and Kuwaiti immigration officials during transit at the Bangkok airport. She said her travel document had been forcibly seized from her upon the arrest.

She barricaded herself on Monday at the hotel room, where she is being held, to prevent Thai authorities from forcing her to board a Kuwait Airways flight that was scheduled to leave Bangkok for Kuwait City on Monday at 11:15 a.m. local time (0415 GMT).

“I ask the government of Thailand... to stop my deportation to Kuwait,” she said on Twitter. “I ask the police in Thailand to start my asylum process.”

Qunun posted a plea for people within “the transit area in Bangkok to protest against deporting me.”

“Please I need u all,” she wrote. “I’m shouting out for help of humanity.”

She posted a photo of herself and her passport on Twitter, saying she was seeking refugee status from any country that would protect her from getting harmed or killed.

“My family is strict and locked me in a room for six months just for cutting my hair,” she wrote desperately. “I’m sure 100% they will kill me as soon as I get out of the Saudi jail.”

Saudi Arabia, she said, is “like a prison. I can’t make my own decisions. Even about my own hair I can’t make decisions.”

A friend of her, who lives in Sydney, Australia, told The Guardian on Sunday that Qunun’s life is under real threat in the kingdom, where women are being denied basic human rights under the kingdom’s male guardianship.

“She received a threat from her cousin – he said he wants to see her blood, he wants to kill her,” said her friend, who asked the daily not to be named.

Thai immigration officials also confirmed that she has been denied entry into the country, but denied her allegations they were acting at the behest of the Saudi government.

They said Qunun was refused entry because she did not have the proper documents for a visa on arrival.

The Saudi embassy in Bangkok also claimed that the woman was being held for not having a return ticket, and that she still had her passport, a claim denied by Qunun on Monday.

Later on Monday, a Thai immigration official said that Qunun would not be forcibly sent back.

“If she does not want to leave, we will not force her,” said immigration chief Surachate Hakparn at a press conference at Suvarnabhumi airport, adding that the UN refugee agency will be meeting her.

Rights groups back Qunun

In the meantime, Human rights advocates urged the Thai government to allow her to seek asylum in the country or continue on her travel to Australia.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on Thai authorities in a statement on Monday to “immediately halt the planned deportation” of Qunun “and either allow her to continue her travel to Australia or permit her to remain in Thailand to seek protection as a refugee.”

“Saudi women fleeing their families can face severe violence from relatives, deprivation of liberty, and other serious harm if returned against their will,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. 

The deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, Phil Robertson, also said that the woman “faces grave harm if she is forced back to Saudi Arabia.”

Bangkok, however, has a history is sending asylum seekers back to their home countries, according to Robertson.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) also said that asylum seekers cannot be returned to their country of origin if their life is under threat.

“The UN Refugee Agency has been following developments closely and has been trying to seek access from the Thai authorities to meet with Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, to assess her need for international protection,” it said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia has long faced scathing criticism for mistreating women besides its other human rights violations.

Under the kingdom’s male guardianship laws, men are allowed to exercise arbitrary authority to make decisions on behalf of their female relatives.

In addition to facing punishment for “moral” crimes, women can also become the target of “honor killings” at the hands of their families, activists say.

Saudi women were also banned from voting until 2015.

Since May, Saudi authorities have detained more than a dozen prominent women’s rights activists, most of whom campaigned for the right to drive, which was granted in June.

Divorced Saudi women to be informed via text messages

Meanwhile, until this weekend, men in Saudi Arabia were also allowed to divorce their wives without even notifying them.

Saudi courts, however, started on Saturday to send notifications in the form of text messages to the women divorced by their husbands. The move, Riyadh said, is designed to stop the practice of men ending marriages without telling their wives.

"In most Arab countries, men can just divorce their wives," said Suad Abu-Dayyeh from global rights group, Equality Now. "At least women will know whether they are divorced or not.

"It is a tiny step, but it is a step in the right direction," Abu-Dayyeh told Reuters, also explaining that being informed of a divorce does not mean that a woman will be given alimony or the custody of her children.

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