Saudi Teen Given Refugee Status, Australia Considering Visa for Her **UPDATE**

Update: 13 Jan 2019 - Last night, Rahaf Mohammed Al-qunun arrived in Toronto having been granted an emergency visa at the request of the UN. She will have the opportunity to quickly acclimatize to Canadian winters as there is nothing but snow and freezing temperatures in Toronto's forecast. It is not known where she will end up living. 

Welcome to Canada Rahaf. God bless you and keep you safe.


Original story:

This is the third story in as many days for this bright, courageous, young woman. The first is here, the 2nd here, and there is another tragic story of another young woman who attempted to escape the lunacy of Saudi Arabia's version of Islam. Her story puts this one into context.

By Clyde Hughes

Rahaf Mohammed Al-qunun (C) walks with Thai Immigration Police Chief Surachet Hakparn (R) at a transit hotel inside Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok, Thailand, Monday. Photo by Thai Immigration Bureau/EPA-EFE

(UPI) -- A Saudi woman who fought deportation from Bangkok back to her family by barricading herself in a hotel room was granted refugee status by the United Nations refugee agency Wednesday, authorities said.

The status will allow Rahaf Mohammed Al-qunun, 18, to apply for asylum in another country, the New York Times reported. She had hoped to travel to Australia where she has friends before she was detained at the Bangkok airport this past weekend and threatened with deportation.

The teenager told officials that she has renounced Islam and feared that her family and relatives would kill her if she returned. She escaped from her family on a flight while they vacationed in Kuwait.

She refused to leave her room during a two-day standoff where she used social media to plea for help, demanding that she meet with U.N. officials. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugee representatives were allowed to process a claim for refugee status.

Local Thai media reported that Al-qunun's father traveled to Bangkok and met with refugee agency officials, but was told that his daughter refused to see him.

Australia's Department of Home Affairs said Wednesday that the United Nations had referred Al-qunun's case to their country for refugee settlement.

South Australia Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young urged Australian officials to welcome the teenager.

"Australian Government should work now with the U.N. refugee agency to offer young Saudi woman Rahaf Alqunun safety in Australia," Hanson-Young wrote on Twitter. "Offering her sanctuary and the chance to live free of discrimination in a country that respects women & girls is the right thing to do."

Australian officials said that they would consider issuing Al-qunun a humanitarian visa if the UNHCR gave her refugee status.

"Pending the outcome of that, if she is found to be a refugee, then we will give very, very, very serious consideration to a humanitarian visa," Australia's Health Minister Greg Hunt said, The Guardian reported.

Elaine Pearson, the Australian director of Human Rights Watch, said that Australia should come to Al-qunun's defense on moral grounds.

"Foreign governments, including Australia, that are concerned about human rights should be doubling down and offering support," Pearson said. "The government has said that promoting women's rights is a priority as part of its foreign policy; well here's a concrete case where they can protect a young woman's life, and the government should be seizing that opportunity and making its views widely known."

Gay, Atheist Student from Malaysia has Refugee Claim Accepted

Only in Canada, eh

Hazim Ismail declared a 'protected person' by refugee status hearing panel in Winnipeg

CBC News 

An openly gay and atheist University of Winnipeg student who feared for his life if he was sent back to his home country, Malaysia, will be allowed to stay in Canada, as his claim for refugee status has been accepted.

Hazim Ismail's partner, friends and supporters hugged him after an Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada panel in Winnipeg announced its decision following a 20-minute hearing on Tuesday morning.

"It was overwhelming and I feel really, really, really loved and appreciated," Ismail said as he thanked everyone who has supported him.

Ismail said he was still trying to process the decision, which came after months of preparations and anxiety about possibly having to return to Malaysia, where homosexuality is punishable by law and 60 per cent of the population is Muslim.

"Hazim walked in as a refugee claimant and he is walking out as a protected person … which means he cannot be deported back to Malaysia," said Bashir Khan, his lawyer.

"This is one of those cases where the evidence is strong, my client is very credible and he has got tremendous public support, and all of that came together and he won his claim without too much struggle at the hearing room today."

Khan said Ismail will receive a written version of the decision in the next three to six weeks. With that document in hand, he can apply for permanent resident status in Canada — a process that Khan estimates can take 10 to 13 months.

Disowned by family

Ismail said his family, who are Muslim, disowned him and stopped paying for his education last year after learning he is gay and an atheist. His story became public after a GoFundMe campaign was launched in December to help pay his tuition for the rest of his semester.

He said he once thought of returning to Malaysia and trying to live undercover there, but his case has since attracted media attention in his home country, along with homophobic comments and even threats from some members of the public there.

"If you had asked me like back in December, I would've been like, 'Ah, well, maybe I can go back.' But now, like, this was me backed into a corner," he said.

"I'm trying to fight for survival because Malaysia's not welcoming of homosexuals."

Ismail added that as recently as last week, he received an email from someone claiming to be doing research on apostates — people who no longer subscribe to a certain religious group — in Malaysia.

In Islam they are called infidels.

That person "wanted me to reveal the names of apostates who have come out to me in private," he said.

"It's one thing to come out to a family that's not receiving it very well, but to be outed to thousands of strangers, it's not something that I don't feel anybody could be prepared for, so it has been really stressful."

A bad precedent

While I feel for Ismail's predicament and agree with the decision by the Immigration and Refugee Board that his life would be in danger in Malaysia and therefore should be protected, I do have some problems with this precedent.

First of all, it is a precedent and is likely to be used in future hearings.

Second, Ismail chose to be both homosexual and atheist. I know that's not what most liberal-minded people believe, but homosexuality is a choice. It is definitely difficult for some to choose otherwise, and is progressively more difficult to remove oneself from the lifestyle the longer you are in it, but it is, nevertheless, a choice. 

Third, the combination of the two above facts make it very easy for anyone from an Islamic country to apply for refugee status by claiming he/she is atheist and gay, whether they are or not. It could even be used by jihadists to enter Canada. 

Sweden to Refugees: Find a Bed or Go Back to Germany… But Don’t Look for Them at IKEA

As Germany ‘downgrades’ Syrian refugee status

© Robert Nyholm / Reuters

Sweden’s migration minister warned refugees that if they don’t find their own accommodation, they will be deported back to Germany or Denmark. The news comes as Europe’s refugee influx had depleted IKEA’s stockpiles of beds.

The Swedish government told media on Friday that it will no longer be able to provide housing for refugees and migrants arriving in the country, despite Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson’s claims that the migration crisis is not putting “acute” pressure on public finances.

“Those who come here may be met by the message that we can’t arrange housing for them,” Migration Minister Morgan Johansson told reporters. “Either you’ll have to arrange it yourself, or you have to go back to Germany or Denmark again.”

Europe’s refugee crisis has been dubbed the worst since WWII, with tens of thousands of people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and North Africa in hopes of starting a new life in Europe.

Amid the climbing number of refugees coming to Sweden, IKEA has announced that it is running extremely low on beds and mattresses in both Sweden and Germany.

“There are some shortages of bunk beds, mattresses and duvets” in several German and Swedish stores, an IKEA spokeswoman, Josefin Thorell, told Bloomberg. “If the situation persists we expect that it will be difficult to keep up and maintain sufficient supply.”

IKEA has been helping out local authorities with accommodation for refugees.

Sweden, a country of 10 million, has received 120,000 refugees and migrants so far in 2015, with another 190,000 still expected to arrive.

The Swedish Migration Agency has become so desperate that it allowed around 50 refugees to sleep on the floor in its head office on Thursday night, as it had failed to find any other accommodation for them.

Germany ‘downgrades’ Syrian refugee status

Meanwhile, Germany is also taking a step back from its welcoming policy towards refugees from Syria by striking out a law allowing the families of migrants to join them in Germany, the daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported.

The paper also revealed that the German government is scaling back on the legal protections available for newly arrived Syrians.

As a result of the policy change, each Syrian refugee can only qualify for one residence permit for up to one year, and will not have the ability to invite the rest of their immediate family to join them in Germany.

“The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has been ordered to only grant secondary protection for refugees from Syria’s civil war,” the FAZ cited an interior ministry document as saying.

Previously, Germany had given “primary protection” to refugees, including three-year residence permits and the right of family reunification.

The German and Swedish governments have been accepting towards the refugees coming to their countries so far, but their resources are running thin.

Germany, with a population of 80 million people, may receive 1.5 million asylum seekers in this year alone. It has already accepted more asylum applications than any other European nation, with a number of critics pointing to the high number of uneducated and illiterate refugees arriving in the country.

According to the latest data cited by FAZ, in August Germany received 55,600 refugee applications from Syrians, of which 38,600 were granted residency.

Germany’s population remains divided on the government’s response to help refugees, however. The right-wing PEGIDA movement (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident) has been growing in popularity, with activists taking to the streets of Dresden for anti-refugee demonstrations that are often met with counter-protesters, which often leads to clashes.

Serious consequences
While undoubtedly necessary, ending the right to family reunification may have some serious consequences. For one, it will greatly temper migrant's joy at arriving in Germany expediting the day when they become disenchanted and eventually angry. The other serious effect could be that family left behind in Syria may decide that they too have to make the perilous trip to freedom if they ever want to rejoin their husbands, sons, or fathers.