Canada grants asylum to Saudi teen

An 18-year-old Saudi woman who said she is fleeing abuse from her family has been granted asylum in Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed Friday.

Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun refused to fly back and barricaded herself into her airport hotel room, attracting international attention.

She said she had renounced Islam, which is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia.

The UN’s refugee agency has said it considers her to be a legitimate refugee.

Thailand’s immigration chief Surachate Hakparn said Rahaf al-Qunun has left Thailand for Canada on board a Korean Air flight.

“Canada has granted her asylum,” the Thai official told Reuters.

The UNHCR applauded Canada’s decision in a statement on Friday afternoon. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said the woman’s case, which attracted widespread attention, provided “a glimpse into the precarious situation of millions of refugees worldwide.”

“Refugee protection today is often under threat and cannot always be assured, but in this instance international refugee law and overriding values of humanity have prevailed,” he said

Her father and brother, he said, who had come on what turned out to be a futile visit to try to persuade her to return to Saudi Arabia with them, would be leaving Thailand shortly after her.

It is only two days since the Australian government announced that it had been approached to take Ms Qunun, and that it would treat her request sympathetically. The UN usually approaches only one country at a time to seek asylum.

It is not clear why the Australian option fell through, and the UN switched to Canada. It might be that Australia’s tough line towards refugees, and the insistence of its Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton that she would get no special treatment, threatened to slow down the processing of her application.

The UN was concerned about her safety, following online threats to her life, and Canada may have been able to process her resettlement more quickly.