BANGKOK: Thailand’s immigration chief vowed Wednesday not to force refugees to return home “involuntarily”, after a Saudi woman’s desperate plea for resettlement drew global attention to a country that does not recognise asylum seekers.
The country is not a signatory to a UN convention on refugees and has long come under fire for holding them in detention centres 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 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 UN refugee agency within days and resettled to Canada within a week, where she was welcomed by Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland after landing in Toronto on Saturday.
Qunun said she suffered abuse in the ultra-conservative kingdom and refused to see family members who came 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 immigration chief Surachate Hakparn, a blunt-talking media-savvy official nicknamed “Big Joke” who was recently appointed to the role and vowed reforms.
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