{"id":28754,"date":"2019-01-11T19:23:32","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T19:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=28754"},"modified":"2019-01-11T19:23:32","modified_gmt":"2019-01-11T19:23:32","slug":"canada-grants-asylum-to-saudi-teenager-rahaf-alqunun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=28754","title":{"rendered":"Canada grants asylum to Saudi teenager Rahaf Alqunun"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, who barricaded herself in a Bangkok airport hotel room earlier this week in a bid to stave off deportation to the kingdom, has been granted asylum by Canada<\/a>, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said.<\/p>\n

On Friday evening, the 18-year-old, who claimed to be fleeing abuse from her family, boarded a Korean Air flight from Bangkok to Seoul where she will take a connecting flight to Canada.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Canada has been unequivocal that we’ll stand up for human rights and women’s rights around the world,” Trudeau said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“When the United Nations made a request of us that we grant Miss Alqunun’s asylum, we accepted.”<\/p>\n

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Saudi teen detained in Thailand fears deportation (1:31)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Alqunun arrived in Bangkok on a flight from Kuwait over the weekend, saying her family subjected her to physical and psychological abuse.<\/p>\n

Her father travelled to Thailand and denied mistreating her but she refused to see him during his trip.<\/p>\n

The teenager said she planned to seek asylum in Australia, fearing she would be killed if repatriated by Thai immigration officials who stopped her at the airport.<\/p>\n

Alqunun live-tweeted her entire stay at the airport, posting videos and constantly updating her followers.<\/p>\n

Her Twitter account gained more than 100,000 followers over six days but the teenager reportedly suspended her profile on Friday after receiving “some very nasty, very real death threats”.<\/p>\n

Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch<\/a>, said on Twitter: “Rahaf temporarily suspended her #Twitter account because she has been receiving some very nasty, very real death threats. Not sure when she will resume, & think it depends on what @Twitter @Jack does about tracking & shutting down those accounts making these threats! #SaveRahaf”<\/p>\n

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Rahaf temporarily suspended her #Twitter<\/a> account because she has been receiving some very nasty, very real death threats. Not sure when she will resume, & think it depends on what @Twitter<\/a> @Jack<\/a> does about tracking & shutting down those accounts making these threats! #SaveRahaf<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/YLoZ7Nzyc4<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Phil Robertson (@Reaproy) January 11, 2019<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, who barricaded herself in a Bangkok airport hotel room earlier this week in a bid to stave off deportation to the kingdom, has been granted asylum by Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said. On Friday evening, the 18-year-old, who claimed to be fleeing abuse from her family, boarded a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":28755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}