QUESTIONS OVER SAUDI’S THAI ASYLUM
THAILAND is no friend to asylum seekers, so why did it let a Saudi teenager stay?
When Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, an 18-year-old Saudi woman, landed in Thailand last Saturday, she became a prisoner. Rather than allowing her to fly to Australia and seek asylum, Thai officials detained her in a hotel and intended to send her back to the Middle East, but just two days later, they suddenly changed their plans: Alqunun was allowed to stay and apply for refugee status, which she said she needed as protection from her abusive family.
The decision has stunned many observers, given that Thailand’s military government has often been hostile to asylum seekers. In 2018, according to Human Rights Watch, Thailand detained thousands of people, including many Pakistani asylum seekers, during an immigration crackdown called Operation X-ray Outlaw Foreigner.
In November, the country detained a former soccer player from Bahrain, Hakeem al-araibi, who had been living as a refugee in Australia after speaking out against a Bahraini official.
So why did the country back down in Alqunun’s case?
An obvious reason may be the global attention that she has attracted on Twitter. The Saudi teen posted videos from inside the hotel room where she was being held, documenting her refusal to emerge until she was put in contact with UNHCR, the UN’S refugee agency.
Abdalelah Mohammed A al-shuaibi, the chargé d’affaires at the Saudi Embassy in Thailand, said during a Tuesday meeting with Thai officials that “we wish they had confiscated her phone instead of her passport”, according to CNN.
Another factor may be growing international disapproval of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s brutal war in Yemen and the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, apparently at the hands of the Saudi government.
“You could argue that in this postkhashoggi era, no nation would want to bend over backwards to help the Saudis,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia programme at the Wilson Centre. “Even authoritarian states do give mind to reputational considerations.”
However, history could be playing a role as well – namely, the mysterious events surrounding a 1989 jewel heist that caused a diplomatic freeze between the two countries. It all began when a Thai gardener, working for a Saudi prince, stole as much as 91kg of jewellery from the family (he is rumoured to have wheeled the booty out of the estate in a vacuum cleaner) and then fled home to Thailand.
When Thai authorities returned the jewellery to Saudi Arabia, the family found that many of them were cheap fakes. They sent Saudi officials to Thailand to investigate, but three of the diplomats were mysteriously murdered.
Kugelman said relations between the two countries had vastly improved since the heist, but some scars apparently remain.
In 2010, according to the Economist, Thai Muslims were still being held in limbo waiting for visas for their pilgrimages to Mecca.