Rahaf Mohammed

Mohammed was scheduled to be forcibly repatriated on a flight to Kuwait on 7 January 2019. She barricaded her room to block entry, while at times live streaming airport staff trying to get her to leave the room. She refused to leave. The Thai government later released a statement saying that it would not deport her. François Zimeray, a lawyer chosen by the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights to defend Mohammed in Bangkok against deportation back to Saudi Arabia, judged the role of Mohammed's tweets to have played an overwhelming role in preventing her deportation. Zimeray stated that the Thai authorities' attitude changed "completely" in "a few minutes" when they realized the strength of international support for Mohammed. Mohammed revealed in a later interview that she wrote a goodbye letter and decided that she would end her life if she was to be forced back to Saudi Arabia.

In an initial assessment on 5 January 2019, Human Rights Watch Asia deputy director Phil Robertson said "the Thai government... (was then) manufacturing a story that she tried to apply for a visa and it was denied... in fact, she had an onward ticket to go to Australia, she didn't want to enter Thailand in the first place." Two days later on 7 January 2019, after international pressure, the Thai official overseeing immigration in the case, Police General Surachate Hakparn, was seen walking beside Mohammed, and stated that "We will not send anyone to die. We will not do that. We will adhere to human rights under the rule of law." Subsequently, she was placed under the care of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), her passport, which had indeed included a valid Australian tourist visa, was returned to her, and formal arrangements for the establishment of her long-term asylum status began.

After she was resettled in Canada, a smear campaign was launched against her in both Saudi mainstream media and social media, sometimes even containing conspiracy theories such as a "Canadian attempt at stirring up civil strife by inciting the Kingdom’s teenage girls to abandon social mores" in Okaz. while those that helped or sympathized with her such as Mona Eltahawy were heavily attacked. Saudi commentator Hani al-Dhaheri called her a drug addict and claimed that the fund raising campaign for her was fake and a failure and she would end up "waiting tables in a nightclub for drunkards and gangsters" despite the official fund raising campaign successfully exceeding the goal of $10,000. Further the Pro-Government newspaper Al Riyadh even used the incident to promote family oversight and state control of media in order to stop “hostile ideas” from infecting Saudi youth and to save children from "intellectual penetration".

Rahaf Mohammed (formerly Rahaf Mohammed Mutlaq al-Qunun; Arabic: رهف محمد مطلق القنون ‎; born 11 March 2000) is a Saudi woman who was detained by Thai authorities on 5 January 2019 while transiting through Bangkok airport, en route from Kuwait to Australia. She had intended to claim asylum in Australia and escape her family who she says abused her and threatened to kill her for amongst other reasons leaving Islam, an act that is also a capital offence under Saudi law. After appealing for help on the social media service Twitter and thus gaining significant worldwide attention, Thai authorities abandoned their plans to forcibly return her to Kuwait (from where she would be repatriated to Saudi Arabia), and she was taken under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and granted refugee status. On 11 January, she was granted asylum in Canada and arrived in Toronto the next day.

Mohammed was born on 11 March 2000. Her father is the town governor of al-Sulaimi in the Ha'il Region. She has nine siblings.

based on the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol, I'm rahaf mohmed, formally seeking a refugee status to any country that would protect me from getting harmed or killed due to leaving my religion and torture from my family.