rebel my escape from saudi arabia to freedom rahaf mohammed

Seven days after her ordeal began, she arrived in Toronto to begin a new life. When Australian authorities failed to respond with the urgency the situation required, she was granted asylum in Canada.

Rahaf was eventually taken under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and granted refugee status.

Knowing this would mean her death, Rahaf barricaded herself in an airport hotel room and appealed for help through social media, creating a Twitter storm and capturing the attention of government leaders, human rights advocates and media around the world. But on her arrival the Thai authorities, acting on the instructions of Saudi officials, detained Rahaf with the aim of returning her to her family. She boarded a plane bound for Bangkok, en route to Australia where she intended to seek asylum. She was fleeing systematic abuse of her human rights as a woman growing up in Saudi Arabia and, specifically, her family's threats to kill her because she desired the freedoms Western women take for granted. In January 2019, then 18-year-old Saudi woman Rahaf Mohammed escaped from her family while holidaying in Kuwait. Now Rahaf tells her remarkable story for the first time and reveals the dystopian reality of what life is like for women within Saudi Arabia.įrom the guardianship system, which places unmarried women under the full control of their male relatives, to the secretive online underground network of Saudi runaways plotting their escape, Rebel is a gripping memoir of resistance and bravery by a woman determined to tell the truth about life in the closed kingdom.Print Rebel: My escape from Saudi Arabia to freedomīiography, Autobiography, Memoirs, Letters, Interviews This was Rahaf's chance at a new life, the one she had dreamed of. Her account gained forty-five thousand followers overnight and offered her a vital lifeline.

It was a trick, and soon she found herself trapped, barricaded in a hotel room.Īs men pounded on her door, the teenager decided to reach out to the world on Twitter - and the world answered. But the eighteen-year-old only made it as far as Bangkok before her passport was taken away. If caught, she was sure she would be killed, like other rebel women who had tried to flee her country's oppressive regime. In early 2019, after more than a year of careful planning, Rahaf Mohammed boarded a plane and finally escaped from Saudi Arabia. The striking image of a young woman, wielding nothing but a cellphone, facing down the force of an oppressive government is an apt metaphor for this fraught moment in Saudi Arabia's history.'THE WASHINGTON POST A gripping true story of bravery and sacrifice by a young woman whose escape from Saudi Arabia captivated the world. 'Through her courageous resistance, she has, for a moment, drawn global attention to the ongoing struggle of Saudi women.

Rebel my escape from saudi arabia to freedom rahaf mohammed