Posted on 01/07/2019 8:11:48 AM PST by SeekAndFind
BANGKOK — The head of Thailand’s immigration police said Monday that an 18-year-old Saudi woman who was stopped in Bangkok as she was trying to travel to Australia for asylum to escape alleged abuse by her family will not be sent anywhere against her wishes.
The woman, Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, was allowed to temporarily enter Thailand under the protection of the U.N. refugee agency, which was expected to take at least five to seven days to evaluate her case and claims for asylum status.
Thai immigration police released photos of Alqunun after she left the room at a Bangkok airport hotel where she had been holed up. Where she would stay in the Thai capital was not announced.
Alqunun had stayed in the room while sending out desperate pleas for help over social media. She began posting on Twitter late Saturday after her passport was taken away when she arrived in Bangkok on a flight from Kuwait.
The agreement allowing her to leave the airport came after officials from the U.N. refugee agency, known as UNHCR, met with Thai immigration police chief Maj. Gen. Surachate Hakparn, and then with Alqunun.
UNHCR declined to release any details of its meeting with Alqunun, but its representative in Thailand, Giuseppe De Vincentiis, noted “a good spirit of collaboration so far” with Thai officials.
According to Surachate, Alqunun’s father was due to arrive in Bangkok on Monday night, and officials would then see if the young woman was willing to depart with him. He said the woman would be asked if she was willing to meet with her father.
“As of now, she does not wish to go back and we will not force her. She won’t be sent anywhere tonight,” Surachate said at one of several news conferences at the airport.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
It would be interesting to know how she got into Kuwait to get a flight . . . arranged for a passport then drove over the border (maybe with a sympathetic male relative) to get a flight? The times they are a changin’ in Soddie Arabia.
This is really going to create a slippery slope. Shortly these women literally running from their husbands are going to start bringing kids into the system. Once that cat’s out of the bag, the airlines won’t have enough seats available.
And get ready for a streamlined effort to bring the entire family over on the same guise. This is going to be a mess.
rwood
She’ll be Khashoggied
Don’t you need a visa to fly to Australia.
She won’t last long. You just don’t leave the mooselimb cult alive.
I think she had this planned out in segments, and just aimed to get into Thailand (probably on a fake passport). Then she’d arrange for a travel visa into Australia, but that wasn’t going to occur with the fake passport.
I’ve been through the travel visa for Australia. It’s not a big deal but they review your arrests and convictions. Any bad boy stuff, and they don’t approve it. Australia won’t be interested in granting asylum unless she’s got an education, and speaks English.
Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun barricaded herself in her transit hotel room, citing fear for her life from her family.
Smart move.
Case in point, on my last trip back from Japan, they greeted me by name BEFORE even looking at my passport, noted I was a legal resident there 14 years earlier and welcomed me to come back and visit soon. It was flattering and a little creepy at the same time. I suppose all this information was available to them from scanning my passport in on arrival and interface with the airline passenger list for the departure.
Eff the un. Thailand has no sovereignty?
What no one is explaining is this -— WHY IS SHE TRYING TO ESCAPE HER FAMILY?
I can only think of two possible reasons:
1) She is being forced to marry someone she does not like
2) She converted to another religion ( i.e. Christianity ).
For if the two are compared logically by any thinking person either (a)Christianity wins or (b)Islam in that locale devolves into something which is unrecognizable by Islam elsewhere. The only time Islam wins is when someone wants protection or an excuse to be a thug with special rights, as in the U.S. prison system.
OTOH, Indonesia is a prime example of (b). Except for Aech province, which is under Sharia law, the brand of Islam practiced elsewhere in Indonesia is fairly tolerant and relaxed to a degree that it would be considered apostacy in Soddie Arabia.
You are right about Indonesia. BALI for example, is a majority Hindu province. If you drive in Bali, you see Hindu temples in almost every block with statues of Hindu gods and idols.
Such a situation would not be tolerated in most any other Muslim country
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