Thailand’s immigration chief on Wednesday vowed not to force refugees to return home “involuntarily,” after a Saudi Arabian woman’s desperate plea for resettlement drew global attention to a country that does not recognize asylum seekers.
The country is not a signatory to the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and has long come under fire for holding them in detention centers or deporting them back to repressive regimes where they face prison or worse.
Many cases do not make headlines, but that changed earlier this month when 18-year-old Saudi Arabian runaway Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun arrived in Bangkok and staved off deportation by barricading herself in a hotel at the airport, live-tweeting the standoff to an international audience.
She was handed over to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees within days and resettled to Canada within a week, where she was welcomed by Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland after landing in Toronto on Saturday.
Al-Qunun said that she suffered abuse in the ultra-conservative kingdom and refused to see family members who traveled to Thailand after her flight.
The lightning-fast processing of her case was unprecedented for Thailand and was overseen almost from start to finish by Thai Immigration Bureau Commissioner Surachate Hakparn, a blunt-talking, media-savvy official nicknamed “Big Joke” who was recently appointed to the role and vowed reforms.
Asked about Thailand’s treatment of refugees, Surachate told an audience at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand that he would take a new approach and that under his supervision, “there will be no one involuntarily sent back to the country if they don’t want to go back.”
He added that as chief of the department, “we will now follow international norms.”
However, the claims were met with skepticism given the arrest in November last year of refugee soccer player Hakeem Alaraibi, who had been granted permanent residency in Australia, but was stopped at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport while on vacation.
Alaraibi, a former player for Bahrain’s national team, is wanted on charges relating to the damage of a police station during the Arab Spring in the Persian Gulf state, but rights groups have said that he was playing a match at the time and the allegations are false.
Surachate said that case was different, as there was an outstanding arrest warrant for Alaraibi in Bahrain, but added that he could argue his case in court.
Australia has called for Alaraibi to be returned to the country, where he lives in Melbourne and plays for a semi-professional soccer team.
The processing of al-Qunun’s experience would not serve as a model for future cases in Thailand, Surachate said, denying that officials caved to pressure as the story went viral and the young woman garnered thousands of Twitter followers.
“Each case will be considered case by case,” he said.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was