A Saudi girl who says she is fleeing her poor family's treatment has been hidden inside a hotel room at Bangkok's capital Bangkok to avoid being returned to her country and has asked the United Nations to intervene to allow her asylum.
Rahaf Mohammed al-Qanoon, 18, arrived at Bangkok airport on a Kuwaiti Airways flight from Kuwait and was on her way to Australia to apply for asylum. She confirmed she had a visa.
The head of Thailand's Immigration Service, Swartzat Hakparn, said the Saudi girl was denied access because she did not have a return ticket or a hotel reservation.
Rahaf traveled to Thailand while her family was visiting Kuwait. She says the family held her for six months in a room in her home in Saudi Arabia, beat her and threatened to kill her just because she had cut her hair and expressed fear that she would be killed if she returned to Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi girl was due to return on a Kuwait Airways flight today, but she hid inside her hotel room at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok. In a video posted on Twitter, the girl shows how she fortified herself by a table she placed behind the door of her room.
In the same passage, Rahaf said that she officially asks the United Nations to grant her refugee status in any country "to protect her from harm or death because of the abandonment of religion and torture of my family."
Commenting on the Saudi girl case, Human Rights Watch said in a statement today that the Thai authorities should immediately stop their deportation and allow them to continue traveling to Australia or allow them to remain in Thailand to seek protection as a refugee.