Who Is Rahaf Mohammed? Saudi Woman Escaped Abusive Family, Thailand Threatens Return

UPDATE: 1.28 a.m. EST Wednesday — The Australian government is considering granting refugee status to Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun after the United Nation Human Right Commission found her to be a genuine refugee. Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said Rahaf would be considered like any other refugee and no special treatment would be given to her, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Original story:

An 18-year-old woman from Saudi Arabia was taken into custody Saturday by Thai officials in Bangkok, and feared for her life if she was sent back to her conservative, abusive family. Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun took to Twitter to share her story and urged people to help her survive.

According to a report by MailOnline, Thailand's immigration chief Surachate Hakparn told Agence France-Presse, “Rahaf Mohammed M Alqunun ran away from her family to avoid marriage and she is concerned she may be in trouble returning to Saudi Arabia.”

Rahaf was vacationing in Kuwait with her family when she planned her escape with the help of a friend, allegedly to escape mental and physical abuse they put her through, MailOnline reported. She wanted to go to Australia seeking asylum but was stopped in Thailand. She landed at Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok where someone took her passport, assuring her of getting a visa for Thailand. But an hour later, officials told her they knew she had fled her family and that they would send her back to them in Kuwait.

Hakparn called the incident “a family problem” and said Rahaf would therefore be sent back to her family.

However amid the ongoing concern over the woman's life, New York-based nonprofit Human Rights Watch requested Thailand to “immediately halt the planned deportation” of Rahaf.

Rahaf posted over 80 tweets in the hope of getting help from across the world. Talking to MailOnline, Rahaf described her fear of being murdered if she was returned to her male family members.

“My brother told me that he’s waiting with some Saudi men. They will take me to Saudi Arabia and my father will kill me, because he is so angry. He will kill me. My family do this. I know them. They kept telling me they will kill me if I do something wrong - they say that since I was a child,” she said.

While recounting one of the barbaric assault she went through, she said she was once locked in a room for six months for cutting her hair.

Rafah's father reportedly holds a position in Saudi government and told Thailand airport officials her daughter was mentally ill but could not provide any supporting medical documentation.

Rafah had expressed how Saudi embassy officials in Thailand threatened her against trying to flee. In one of her tweets, she said, “I have been threatened by several staff from the Saudi embassy and the Kuwaiti airlines, and they said "If you run, we will find you and kidnap you, then deal with you" I really don't know how they are going to behave in case I run.”

Saudi embassy official refuted the allegations and said they did not have any authority to hold her at the airport, and added it was done at the discretion of Thai officials who stopped her as she did not have any return ticket or hotel booking to support her tourist visa.

A lot of support was pouring in from across the world for Rahaf. Georg Schmidt, Ambassador of Germany to Thailand, tweeted Sunday night that German officials were in touch with their Thai counterparts regarding the case. According to a tweet Monday morning by a correspondent at German Press Agency dpa, Rahaf’s deportation was yet not planned.

Another tweet by Jonathan Head, BBC correspondent for Southeast Asia, said Rahaf was not on the Kuwait Airlines flight that left the airport Monday morning local time.