Rahaf al-Qunun: Unpicking the tweets that may have saved her life (2024)

ByHeather Chen and Mayuri Mei Lin,BBC News

Rahaf al-Qunun: Unpicking the tweets that may have saved her life (1)Rahaf al-Qunun: Unpicking the tweets that may have saved her life (2)Reuters

On the evening of Saturday, 5 January, a desperate situation began to unravel on a newly created Twitter account.

Fleeing her Saudi family in Kuwait, Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, 18, sent out a series of tweets pleading for help from an airport hotel room in Bangkok.

At the time she had 24 followers.

"I'm the girl who ran away to Thailand. I'm now in real danger because the Saudi embassy is trying to force me to return," her first-ever tweet in Arabic read.

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Then she said something that would be hard to ignore: "I'm afraid. My family will kill me."

People noticed and the first tweet with the hashtag #SaveRahaf was sent out.

Within minutes of that, Egyptian-American activist Mona Eltahawy translated the Arabic tweets into English and sent it to her hundreds of thousands of followers.

A few hours later that tweet caught the attention of Human Rights Watch and eventually Phil Robertson, its Bangkok-based Asia deputy director, who sent this out.‏

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By the early hours of Sunday he was engaged in a direct Twitter message exchange with Ms Mohammed al-Qunun, guiding the young woman in her dealings with authorities at the airport.

#SaveRahaf

Despite that she kept up her barrage, live tweeting every minute of her ordeal and putting out videos that showed everything that was happening to her at the airport. Over the course of Sunday, her posts became more and more fevered.

The fear and desperation she conveyed through the tweets drew sympathy and support from the Twitter community.

Tweets carrying the #SaveRahaf hashtag continued to gain momentum and by mid-Sunday afternoon, it was in more than half a million tweets, according to Twitter.

An unknown teenager from Saudi Arabia that no-one had ever heard of had gone from 24 followers to more than 27,000 in the span of less than 24 hours.

"When I heard Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun's public statement that she renounced her religion, I knew things would go very bad for her if she was sent back to Saudi Arabia," Human Rights Watch's Phil Robertson told BBC News.

"At that point, there was no question in my mind - she needed our help."

Renouncing Islam, or apostasy, is a crime punishable by death in Saudi Arabia.

The movement to help Ms Mohammed al-Qunun's life gathered huge momentum, particularly in Australia, where her case is now being referred to for possible resettlement.

"Twitter aims to provide a platform where marginalised voices can be seen and heard. This is fundamental to who we are and crucial to the effectiveness of our service," an official statement to the BBC read.

This is where it gets dramatic

On Monday morning, the situation took a turn for the worse, with the arrival of Thai immigration authorities at Ms Mohammed al-Qunun's hotel room to deport her to Kuwait.

Following their direct message exchange on Twitter, Ms Mohammed al-Qunun heeded the advice of Human Rights Watch not to surrender her mobile phone under any circumstances.

And it proved to be a crucial piece of advice.

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The frantic teenager barricaded herself in with Australian journalist Sophie McNeill, refusing to board the flight. Instead, she relentlessly continued documenting the ordeal on Twitter.

After that her followers doubled in number to more than 66,400.

The BBC's South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head, who was part of a network of foreign journalists closely charting Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun's case, said the enormous publicity driven by social media was a big factor in what happened to her.

"Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun was a frightened, young woman. Interest in Rahaf's plight drove her own Twitter following up by the time Thai authorities planned to deport her on Monday morning.

"This was a very powerful human story happening in real time, whose ending was uncertain."

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"In building support and response to crisis situations, Twitter was the perfect social media tool for Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun because it enabled the rapid sharing of information," Phil Robertson added.

"The surge of support on Twitter [not only] caught the attention of reporters and editors, it helped engage the mainstream Thai media.

"Her tweets also attracted attention from local diplomats as well as the highest levels of UNHCR and governments to the situation.

"This was all pivotal in prompting Thailand to re-think their approach once it was clear that Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun would not go quietly."

"As of Sunday night Thai officials were adamant she would be sent back and Thai media had still not reported the story, by Monday morning that had changed," said the BBC's Jonathan Head.

Today Ms Mohammed al-Qunun is safe, having been declared a legitimate refugee by the UN.

Rahaf al-Qunun: Unpicking the tweets that may have saved her life (11)Rahaf al-Qunun: Unpicking the tweets that may have saved her life (12)AFP

Young and social-savvy, Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun was able to take things into her own hands by successfully mobilising a solid online campaign to protect herself.

She has come out of this ordeal with 126,000 followers on Twitter in the five days her account has been active.

In another case where social media was used in a similar way a Syrian man stranded at a Malaysian airport for months managed to successfully seek asylum in Canada after campaigning for his cause on Twitter and Facebook.

But not everyone facing a threat to their life has been as lucky.

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Saudi woman ends airport hotel standoff
Saudi woman in Thailand pleads for asylum
Saudi Arabia's enduring guardianship system
Rahaf al-Qunun: Unpicking the tweets that may have saved her life (2024)

FAQs

How do I delete saved tweets? ›

How to delete Tweets
  1. Open Twitter on your phone or in a web browser and log in.
  2. Head to your profile page by clicking twice on your profile image.
  3. Locate the Tweet you want to delete.
  4. Click on the horizontal three-dots icon located at the top of the Tweet.
  5. Select “Delete Tweet.”
  6. Tap “Delete” to confirm your choice.

How did Rahaf Mohammed escape? ›

While Rahaf was on vacation with her family in Kuwait, she left them and boarded a flight to Bangkok, Thailand. She intended to continue on another flight to seek asylum in Australia. A tourist visa had been issued to her that permitted entry into Australia.

How do I clear all tweets? ›

Download a free tool called Redact to delete all of your tweets at once. TweetDelete can delete up to 3200 tweets at once with a Pro subscription, and you can run it multiple times or upgrade to Premium. TweetEraser is another tool that makes it easy to delete all tweets.

Can you delete deleted tweets? ›

You can make sure that the tweet never sees the daylight again and no Twitter user can ever read it. Now, this is true for as many tweets you want to delete no matter how old or new the tweet is. Infact, tweets are only permanently deleted on Twitter and once deleted there's no way to recover the deleted tweets.

Who is the Saudi girl that ran away? ›

Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, 18, garnered global attention last week after she locked herself into her hotel room and refused to fly back home. She was fleeing her family in Saudi Arabia and, after instigating a high-profile Twitter campaign, was granted asylum in Canada.

Who is the American woman divorced from Saudi husband is trapped in Saudi Arabia? ›

In 2019, Bethany Vierra lost custody of her daughter to her Saudi ex and was trapped in the country. While her case made international news, she faced intimidation and harassment in the kingdom. She told Insider how she and her child managed to escape to the US and remain there.

How do I remove Twitter suggestions? ›

How To Turn Off Twitter Suggestions for Topics on Desktop Web Browser
  1. Scroll through your Twitter feeds. Then, click the three dots beside the feeds you want to stop.
  2. You will see an option to unfollow the specific topic. Click on it.
  3. The system will stop suggesting the topic after this.

How do you recycle tweets? ›

How to recycle your tweets
  1. Identify content worth recycling.
  2. Save it to a swipe file.
  3. Repurpose it.
  4. Publish it again.
Sep 1, 2022

How do I clear the cache on Twitter? ›

Open Storage, Storage & Cache, or Storage Usage on the new page. A new page will open showing the storage and cache statistics. Tap Clear cache in the bottom right corner. Afterward, the storage menu will refresh to show 0B on the cach section to confirm your action.

How do I delete archived tweets? ›

The answer is quite simple. To delete Twitter archive, you need to upload it on a third-party software and erase it from your account. To delete your archive, download it before uploading it on any tool you choose. It would benefit you first to learn the steps to download your Twitter.

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