The Saudis don’t want to let this Rahaf thing get out of hand. Imagine if thousands, or millions, of Saudi women started fleeing for their lives. The regime itself could collapse. And worst of all is that if that actually began to happen, Western governments would start sending those Saudi women back to the Kingdom of the Two Holy Places in droves. And chains.
“Saudi-Backed Organization Denounces Nations For ‘Inciting’ Women To Flee,” Reuters, January 14, 2019:
An organisation backed by Saudi Arabia accused several foreign countries of inciting young women to reject their families, the first public comments from Riyadh since a woman claiming domestic abuse was granted asylum in Canada over the weekend.
The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) did not name 18-year-old Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, who grabbed international attention after barricading herself in a Bangkok airport hotel room and appealing for help on Twitter to resist being sent back to her family, which denies any abuse.
But in a statement late on Sunday NSHR head Mufleh al-Qahtani accused unspecified countries and international organisations of pursuing political agendas and “pushing (women) ultimately to be lost and maybe to fall into the arms of brokers and human traffickers”.
While NSHR says it is independent, the U.S. State Department describes it as “government-funded”….
NSHR “was surprised by some countries’ incitement of some Saudi female delinquents to rebel against the values of their families and push them out of the country and seek to receive them under the pretext of granting them asylum,” Qahtani said….
The case has also drawn attention to Saudi Arabia’s guardianship system, which requires women to have the permission of a male relative to travel, sometimes trapping them as prisoners of abusive families.
Qahtani said Saudi laws forbid mistreatment and allow women to report it, but international rights groups say in practice many Saudi women fear that going to the police would only further endanger their lives.