Rahaf Mohammed is a Saudi woman who was detained by Thai authorities on 5 January 2019 while transiting through Bangkok airport, en route from Kuwait to Australia. She had intended to claim asylum in Australia and escape her family who she says abused her and threatened to kill her for amongst other reasons leaving Islam, an act that is also a capital offence under Saudi law. After appealing for help on the social media serviceTwitter and thus gaining significant worldwide attention, Thai authorities abandoned their plans to forcibly return her to Kuwait, and she was taken under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and granted refugee status. On 11 January, she was granted asylum in Canada and arrived in Toronto the next day.
While Mohammed was on vacation with her family in Kuwait, she left them and boarded a flight to Bangkok, Thailand. She intended to continue on another flight to seek asylum in Australia. A tourist visa had been issued to her that permitted entry into Australia. Her family reportedly filed a missing person report after her escape from Kuwait. Upon arrival at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, a man greeted her, not disclosing that he was a Saudi embassy official, and told her that he needed her passport so that he could help her obtain a Thai visa. He left with her passport and did not return. Mohammed never intended to leave the airport's transit area and therefore did not require a Thai visa. She was detained by Thai authorities at the Miracle Transit Hotel within the airport. Mohammed opened an account on Twitter, and in a series of posts said that she had renounced Islam and was concerned that she could be murdered by her family in a so-called "honor killing" if deported to Saudi Arabia. She also said she had barricaded herself in her hotel room, was refusing to exit until she met with UN representatives, claimed refugee status, and implored embassy officials of various Western nations to assist her in seeking asylum. This drew world-wide support, with more than half a million tweets using the "#SaveRahaf" hashtag. In one tweet, she shared a picture of her passport. Australian ABC Journalist Sophie McNeill flew to Bangkok and sneaked into her room and barricaded herself with Mohammed to protect her. While barricaded Mohammed also allowed a friend to tweet on her behalf. Lawyers in Thailand filed an injunction to prevent her forced deportation. The injunction was subsequently dismissed, though an appeal was planned. Thailand's chief of immigration at the Royal Thai Police Surachate Hakparn subsequently confirmed that authorities in the country had acted at the behest of Saudi Arabia. Mohammed was scheduled to be forcibly repatriated on a flight to Kuwait on 7 January 2019. She barricaded her room to block entry, while at times live streaming airport staff trying to get her to leave the room. She refused to leave. The Thai government later released a statement saying that it would not deport her. François Zimeray, a lawyer chosen by the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights to defend Mohammed in Bangkok against deportation back to Saudi Arabia, judged the role of Mohammed's tweets to have played an overwhelming role in preventing her deportation. Zimeray stated that the Thai authorities' attitude changed "completely" in "a few minutes" when they realized the strength of international support for Mohammed. Mohammed revealed in a later interview that she wrote a goodbye letter and decided that she would end her life if she was to be forced back to Saudi Arabia.
Initial discrepancies in Thai government's accounts of events
In an initial assessment on 5 January 2019, Human Rights Watch Asia deputy director Phil Robertson said "the Thai government... manufacturing a story that she tried to apply for a visa and it was denied... in fact, she had an onward ticket to go to Australia, she didn't want to enter Thailand in the first place." Two days later on 7 January 2019, after international pressure, the Thai official overseeing immigration in the case, Police General Surachate Hakparn, was seen walking beside Mohammed, and stated that "We will not send anyone to die. We will not do that. We will adhere to human rights under the rule of law." Subsequently, she was placed under the care of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, her passport, which had indeed included a valid Australian tourist visa, was returned to her, and formal arrangements for the establishment of her long-term asylum status began.
UN involvement
The UNHCR issued a statement on 7 January, stating that: Mohammed subsequently left the airport in the care of the agency, which later granted her refugee status and asked the Australian government to consider granting her asylum. Australian Home Affairs MinisterPeter Dutton stated in a radio interview with journalists that Mohammed seemed to be safe in Thailand. With growing concerns over her safety and an unclear timeline how long Australia would take to process her application, the UNHCR referred her case to Canada and her application was processed within several hours.
Mohammed's family released a statement disowning her: After learning about her family disavowing her, she decided to drop al-Qunun from her name and to be known as "Rahaf Mohammed." Abdullah al-Shuaibi, Saudi Arabia's chargé d'affaires in Bangkok, was quoted saying, in a meeting with the Thai immigration office: Mohammed's case has been compared to those of Dina Ali Lasloom, and Hakeem al-Araibi. Stephen Kalin, writing for Reuters, described Mohammed's case as triggering a new phase in the Saudi anti male-guardianship campaign.
After she was resettled in Canada, a smear campaign was launched against her in both Saudi mainstream media and social media, sometimes even containing conspiracy theories such as a "Canadian attempt at stirring up civil strife by inciting the Kingdom’s teenage girls to abandon social mores" in Okaz. while those that helped or sympathized with her such as Mona Eltahawy were heavily attacked. Saudi commentator Hani al-Dhaheri called her a drug addict and claimed that the fund raising campaign for her was fake and a failure and she would end up "waiting tables in a nightclub for drunkards and gangsters" despite the official fund raising campaign successfully exceeding the goal of $10,000. Further the Pro-Government newspaper Al Riyadh even used the incident to promote family oversight and state control of media in order to stop “hostile ideas” from infecting Saudi youth and to save children from "intellectual penetration".
