Stranded Saudi Arabian sisters could be deported from Hong Kong
Two Saudi Arabian sisters who were stranded in Hong Kong after fleeing alleged repression at home have been allowed to stay until next month while waiting for third-country resettlement, a lawyer representing them said Thursday.
Michael Vidler said Hong Kong's immigration authorities have confirmed letting the sisters, who arrived from Sri Lanka last September, stay until April 8 but warned that they could face prosecution or be removed as overstayers afterwards.
"We are urgently seeking clarification from Hong Kong immigration authorities and continue to press for an urgent determination of the sister's visas to a third country place of safety," Vidler said in a statement posted on his law firm's social media account.
The women, aged 20 and 18 and using the aliases Reem and Rawan, said they have been hiding in Hong Kong since they arrived and feared being taken back home against their will.
"We are in Hong Kong because of the actions of the Saudi authorities at Hong Kong international airport in September. They know we are in Hong Kong and have been actively looking for us," the sisters were quoted as saying in the statement. "We feel like fish trapped in a little oasis that is rapidly drying out. We are in constant fear of being found by the Saudi authorities and our family and forced to return to Saudi Arabia."
They have been asking to be resettled to a third country, a "place of safety without being ever fearful that the Saudi authorities and our family will find us and abduct us."
Fed up with their abusive family, the sisters said they plotted the escape while they were on holiday with their family in Sri Lanka. They boarded a flight to Hong Kong, intending to catch a connecting flight to Melbourne, Australia, the same day.
But upon arrival in Hong Kong, they were intercepted in the transit area by airline staff and later by both the Saudi Arabian consul general and a vice consul, who they said tried to trick them to board a flight home.
They managed to elude them by entering into Hong Kong as visitors.
But they were told in November that their passports were invalidated and their stay in Hong Kong would expire by the end of last month.
Amnesty International has urged Hong Kong not to send the sisters back home, where they would "likely face criminal charges for leaving their homes without the permission of their male guardian under repressive male guardianship laws, for escaping the country and for renouncing Islam," it said in a statement.
In Saudi Arabia, apostasy is a serious crime that carries the death penalty. The two women also fear physical violence and retribution from male members of their family.
The Immigration Department declined to comment on individual cases, but said in general it is common practice for overstayers to be prosecuted or expelled after their periods of stay expire.
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