Saudi asylum seeker receives death threats

A SAUDI teenager who fled to Thailand, saying she feared her family would kill her, deleted her Twitter account yesterday after receiving death threats, a friend said, while she awaits a decision on where she might be granted asylum.

Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, 18, arrived in Thailand last Saturday and was initially denied entry.

She soon started posting messages on Twitter from the transit area of Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport, saying she had “escaped Kuwait” and her life would be in danger if she was forced to return to Saudi Arabia. Within hours, a campaign sprang up dubbed #SaveRahaf, spread on Twitter by a loose network of activists.

Thai authorities allowed her to enter the country on Monday and the UN refugee agency later referred her case to Australia for consideration for refugee resettlement.

Yesterday, her Twitter account, rahaf84427714, went off-line after she posted she had “bad and good news!” The account reappeared briefly about an hour later but went off-line again within minutes.

A Twitter user known as Nourah, whom Al-Qunun has referred to as a friend, tweeted that Qunun “received death threats and for this reason she closed her Twitter account”.

Al-Qunun, who is staying in Bangkok at an undisclosed location and was not available for comment, had earlier said on Twitter she had been receiving death threats from a relative on the social media platform.

Sophie McNeill, an Australia Broadcast Corporation journalist who has had direct contact with Al-Qunun, said the teenager was “safe and fine” but was taking a short break from Twitter.

“She’s just been receiving a lot of death threats,” McNeill said on Twitter.

Several countries including Canada and Australia were in talks with the UN refugee agency to accept a Saudi asylum seeker who fled alleged abuse from her family, Thai police said. |

RAHAF MOHAMMED AL-QUNUN