SYDNEY\/BANGKOK (Reuters) – Australia said on Wednesday it would consider taking in a 18-year-old Saudi woman who fled to Thailand saying she feared her family, which she accused of abuse, would kill her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun arrived in Bangkok on Saturday appealing for asylum. Australia said on Tuesday it would consider resettling her if the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) deemed her a refugee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe UNHCR has referred Ms Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun to Australia for consideration for refugee resettlement,\u201d Australia\u2019s Department of Homeland Security said in an email on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The department said it would consider the referral \u201cin the usual way, as it does with all UNHCR referrals\u201d. It declined to comment further.Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, a Saudi woman who claims to be fleeing her country and family, is seen in Bangkok, Thailand January 7, 2019 in this still image taken from a video obtained from social media. TWITTER\/ @rahaf84427714\/via REUTERS<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UNHCR office in Thailand also declined to comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Qunun has refused to meet her father and brother who flew to Bangkok this week, Thai immigration chief Surachate Hakparn said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe wanted to make sure that his daughter was safe… he told me that he wanted to take her home,\u201d he said, adding that her father denied Qunun\u2019s allegation that her family was abusing her physically and emotionally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Surachate added that Qunan\u2019s father would remain in Thailand, under the care of the Saudi Arabian embassy, until it is clear where Qunun will receive asylum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne is due in Bangkok on Thursday for a visit arranged earlier, during which she will discuss the case of Bahrain footballer Hakeem AlAraibi, who has refugee status in Australia but is in jail in Thailand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Qunun was initially denied entry to Thailand when she arrived on Saturday. She soon started posting messages on Twitter from the transit area of Bangkok\u2019s Suvarnabhumi airport saying she had \u201cescaped Kuwait\u201d and her life would be in danger if forced to return to Saudi Arabia.Slideshow (2 Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Within hours, a campaign sprang up on Twitter, spread by a loose network of activists around the world, prompting the Thai government to reverse a decision to force the young woman onto a plane that would return her to her family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Qunun\u2019s case has drawn global attention to Saudi Arabia\u2019s strict social rules, including a requirement that women have the permission of a male \u201cguardian\u201d to travel, which rights groups say can trap women and girls as prisoners of abusive families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It comes at a time when Riyadh is facing unusually intense scrutiny from its Western allies over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October and over the humanitarian consequences of its war in Yemen.Turkey calls U.S. Syria conditions a ‘mistake’<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thai authorities arrested and charged AlAraibi, a Bahraini footballer who has a refugee status in Australia, late last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bahrain made a request to have him extradited and he is in jail, waiting for a hearing to decide his case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAlAraibi was granted permanent residency by the Australian government in recognition of his status as a refugee,\u201d Payne said in a statement, saying that she would seek his safe return to Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rights group Amnesty International said Thai authorities should \u201cshow humanity\u201d to AlAraibi the same way they had to Qunun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe welcome the leadership shown by the Thai authorities in Rahaf\u2019s case,\u201d the group\u2019s Middle East director of campaigns, Samah Hadid, said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo person should be deported to a country where they are at risk of serious human rights violations … the humanity shown to Rahaf must not be a one-off.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SYDNEY\/BANGKOK (Reuters) – Australia said on Wednesday it would consider taking in a 18-year-old Saudi woman who fled to Thailand saying she feared her family, which she accused of abuse, would kill her. Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun arrived in Bangkok on Saturday appealing for asylum. Australia said on Tuesday it would consider resettling her if the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2886,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2885\/revisions\/2886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}