A Saudi woman resisting deportation from Thailand has won the first round today, after United Nations officials were granted access to her and she was formally admitted into the country. Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, 18, had barricaded herself inside a hotel room at Bangkok’s international airport after immigration officials tried to force her on board a flight to Kuwait City on Monday. Qunun then embarked on a campaign via Twitter, appealing to the United Nations, Western governments and rights groups to help her win asylum. She said she faced death if she were to return to her family, since she had renounced Islam. Qunun had planned to travel to Australia when Thai authorities, ostensibly tipped off by her family in Kuwait, intercepted her.
The woman's plight, relayed through videos she posted of herself defiantly shoving a mattress against her hotel room door, is a further example of the risks faced by Saudi and other Muslim women in the Middle East when they challenge a rigidly patriarchal system that is often enshrined in law. “My brothers and family and the Saudi Embassy will be waiting for me in Kuwait,” she told Reuters. “My life is in danger. My family threatens to kill me for the most trivial things.” The jeans-clad brunette said a Saudi diplomat seized her passport when she arrived in Bangkok on Saturday. Saudi officials have denied this.
The BBC reported that an injunction filed by Thai lawyers to stop the deportation was dismissed by a Bangkok court early Monday. But apparently caving in to the barrage of protests triggered by Qunun’s online appeals, Thailand’s chief of immigration vowed hours later that the country would “protect her as best we can.” Immigration chief Surachate Hakparn said, “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.”
Thailand is accumulating a reputation for collusion with Gulf monarchies. In December it provoked an outcry when it detained dissident Bahraini footballer, Hakeem al-Araibi. A fierce critic of the Bahraini royal family, Araibi was hauled away after landing at Bangkok airport with his wife for a belated honeymoon. Araibi, who was previously tortured in a Bahrain prison before being granted refugee status in Australia, has yet to be freed.
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