A teenage Saudi was granted refugee status by Canada and has now arrived in Toronto…in business class on Korean Air.
Last week I wrote about 18-year old Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, who fled her allegedly-abusive family while on vacation in Kuwait but got stuck in Thailand. After barricading herself in a transit hotel room and making emotional pleas to the world on Twitter, Canada accepted her asylum request.
On Friday, she left Bangkok and flew to Seoul on Korean Air, connecting from Seoul to Toronto. Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland greeted her upon arrival, ensuring she would not be interdicted by any “Saudi diplomats” in Toronto as she was in Bangkok.
Perhaps a travel blogger in the making, she live-tweeted parts of her flight, showing that she flew business class and enjoyed the onboard wine. What a pity she experienced Korean’s old business class seat. 😉
Still, that’s a nice upgrade for someone who was initially detained in Bangkok in part because she had no cash or other funds for onward travel.
> Read More: Bring Plenty of Cash to Thailand or Face Detention & Deportation
https://twitter.com/rahaf84427714/status/1083842495241318401
CONCLUSION
Upon arriving in Canada, al-Qunun stated:
I would like to thank you people for supporting me and saiving [sic] my life. Truly I have never dreamed of this love and support You are the spark that would motivate me to be a better person.
Welcome to your new home, Ms. al-Qunun. I’m glad you got to enjoy business class.
And on a more serious note, I am so thankful that al-Qunun did not experience the fate of Dina Ali Lasloom, who tried a similar act in 2017 in Manilla, but was sent (kicking and screaming) on a plane back to Saudi Arabia. She has not been heard from since.
image: Korean Air
This is ridiculous. She is “suffering” yet flies business and is sipping wine? Does not sound like a true asylum claim to me. Western countries really need to stop abuses like this.
Is a homeless man with a bed any less homeless? Get the hell over yourself…
She openly defied islam. Apostasy is a death penalty in SA. So yeah, she’s a legit refugee.
Not all asylum seekers are destitute. Anyone with common sense would know that.
No one said she is suffering. She’s a political refugee, not an economic one. Read a little.
And it’s an election year in Canada. Nice chance for some cheap press and photo ops
Canada was looking for an opportunity to stick it in Saudi Arabia’s craw. Now they need to find some Chinese asylum seekers.
Looks like a Canadian diplomat accompanied her on the flight from BKK to YYZ – likely a good move to protect her, and given the diplomat would fly business that might explain why she was sitting up front as well.
Of course, the definition of refugee doesn’t necessarily equate with extreme poverty, as some think… her life was clearly being threatened, and as such she qualified. I’m glad Canada took her.
Just because she flew business class doesn’t mean that it was the taxpayer that picked up the tab. She could have been upgraded by the airline.
Canada is more sensitive to these “family honour” type cases since the appalling Shafia family murders in 2009. Child protection agencies dropped the ball in that case, resulting in the murder of 3 sisters and another woman .
Your statements about her detention in Thailand are wrong. Thailand was simply the transit point where she got off one plane and was going to board the next. The Thai authorities, under pressure from the Saudis, lied and said that she try to clear immigration in Thailand. she was in the transit area and had her passport taken from her by either the Saudi diplomatic staff or the Kuwait Airways station manager.