Skip to main content

Saudi sisters stranded in Hong Kong face deportation

HONG KONG: Two Saudi sisters fleeing what they described as beatings in their home country face a deadline for deportation from Hong Kong within hours unless authorities extend their stay.

The pair, aged 18 and 20, whose identities have not been revealed in a bid to secure their safety, say they could face death if they are deported.

Their lawyer, Michael Vidler, said the immigration department had acknowledged their request and were hopeful a visa extension beyond Thursday’s deadline would be granted.

“We are in fear every day we are in Hong Kong. We want to leave to a third country place of safety as soon as possible. We desperately hope that this will happen very soon,” the sisters said in a statement issued by their lawyer.

The sisters arrived in Hong Kong in September 2018 after running away from a family holiday in Sri Lanka. They have applied for asylum in an unidentified third country.

While fleeing through Hong Kong, they were prevented from boarding a flight to Australia and were intercepted by Saudi Arabian diplomats, the sisters said.

They managed to escape and enter the city as visitors with permission to stay until Thursday. Reuters could not independently verify their story.

The Hong Kong immigration department did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. The Saudi consulate in Hong Kong has not responded to repeated requests for comment from Reuters.

Amnesty International on Thursday urged Hong Kong authorities not to return the sisters to Saudi Arabia.

“This would place them in grave danger,” said Kate Schuetze, Amnesty’s refugee researcher. “They fled the kingdom after repeated abuse by male relatives and they are at real risk of serious human rights violations if they are forcibly returned.”

The post Saudi sisters stranded in Hong Kong face deportation appeared first on ARYNEWS.



from ARYNEWS https://ift.tt/2UcJlKB
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trump says he urged team to ‘slow’ COVID-19 testing

US President Donald Trump said Saturday he was encouraging health officials in his administration to slow down coronavirus testing, arguing that increased tests lead to more cases being discovered. The president has claimed falsely on several occasions that surges of COVID-19 in several states can be explained by greater numbers of diagnostic tests. At his first rally since the outbreak forced nationwide shutdowns in March, Trump told the crowd in Tulsa, Oklahoma that testing was a “double-edged sword.” The United States — which has more deaths and cases than any other country — has carried out more than 25 million coronavirus tests, placing it outside the top 20 countries in the world, per capita. “Here is the bad part: When you do testing to that extent, you are going to find more people, you will find more cases,” Trump argued. “So I said to my people ‘slow the testing down.’ They test and they test.” It was not clear from Trump’s tone if he was playing to the crowd, who ...
Post a Comment
Read more

IT ministry forms panel to review social media rules

ISLAMABAD: While uproar against the new rules to regulate social media continues from various segments of society, including parliamentarians, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and civil society, the information technology ministry on Friday formed a committee to review the rules. The federal cabinet approved the rules on Feb 11, but later after opposition from various quarters, including companies that manage different social media platforms, the prime minister announced that a fresh consultation process would be launched over the Citizens Protection (Against Online Harm) Rules 2020. The committee formed by the IT ministry is headed by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority Chairman Amir Azeem Bajwa while its members are Eazaz Aslam Dar, additional secretary of IT; Tania Aidrus, member of the Strategic Reforms Imple­mentation Unit, Prime Minister Office; and Dr Arslan Khalid, focal person on digital media at the PM Office. Federal Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Ma...
Post a Comment
Read more

IS confirms Baghdadi’s death, vows revenge

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.—AP BEIRUT: The Islamic State militant group confirmed the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a statement on Thursday and named his replacement as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi. “We mourn you ... commander of the faithful,” said Abu Hamza al-Quraishi — presented as the group’s new spokesman — in an audio statement. Baghdadi, who led IS since 2014 and was the world’s most wanted man, was killed in a US special forces raid in Syria’s province of Idlib on Sunday. The group also confirmed the killing in another raid the following day of the group’s previous spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir. The statement said the group’s legislative and consultative body convened after the 48-year-old Iraqi-born jihadist chief’s death. “The Islamic State shura council convened immediately after confirming the martyrdom of Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the elders of the holy warriors agreed” on a replacement, said the seven-minute message. Little is known abou...
Post a Comment
Read more