Tired but smiling, an 18-year-old Saudi Arabian woman, who said she feared death if deported back home, on Saturday arrived in Canada, which offered her asylum in a case that attracted global attention after she mounted a social media campaign.
“This is Rahaf al-Qunun, a very brave new Canadian,” Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland said arm-in-arm with the Saudi woman in Toronto’s airport.
Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun smiled broadly as she exited an airport arrival door sporting a Canada zipper hoodie and a UN High Commissioner for Refugees hat, capping a dramatic week that saw her flee her family while visiting Kuwait and before flying to Bangkok.
Photo: Reuters
Once there, she barricaded herself in an airport hotel to avoid deportation and tweeted about her situation.
On Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would accept al-Qunun as a refugee.
Her situation has highlighted the cause of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, where women fleeing abuse by their families have been caught trying to seek asylum abroad in recent years and returned home.
Freeland said al-Qunun preferred not to take questions.
“She is obviously very tired after a long journey and she preferred to go and get settled, but it was Rahaf’s choice to come out and say hello to Canadians,” Freeland said. “She wanted Canadians to see that she’s here, that she’s well and that she’s very happy to be in her new home.”
After arriving she was off to get winter clothes, said Mario Calla, executive director of COSTI Immigrant Services, which is helping her settle in temporary housing and apply for a health card.
Calla said al-Qunun has friends in Toronto who she would meet up with this weekend.
“She did comment to me about the cold,” Freeland said.
“It does get warmer,” Freeland said she told her.
Alqunun flew to Toronto via Seoul, South Korea, Thai immigration police chief Surachate Hakparn said.
Al-Qunun tweeted two pictures from her plane seat — one with what appears to be a glass of wine and her passport and another holding her passport while on the plane with the hashtag “I did it” and the emojis showing a plane, hearts and a wine glass.
Freeland avoided an answer when asked what the case would mean to Saudi-Canadian relations.
There was no immediate Saudi government reaction, nor any mention of her arrival in state media, but a Saudi government-sanctioned body, the National Society for Human Rights, said it deplores the methods used by some foreign officials and organizations to “incite” some young Saudi females to disobey their families and leave the country.
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