Following weeks of debate, Huda al-Hiran, who defied Saudi Arabia’s laws and social rules, was eventually granted refugee status by the UNHCR.
Huda who fled Saudi Arabia for Yemen with by her Yemeni betrothed, Arafat Mohammed Taher al-Qadi, faced a much feared forced repatriation to the Kingdom after her family and politicians pressured the Yemeni government into handing her back to her kin.
Inspired by the love story and maybe out of a deep –seated desire to avenge Yemen from Saudi Arabia’s many humiliations, the Yemeni public rose to Huda and Arafat’s defence, determined to see the couple realise their dream of marriage.
Concerned for her own safety should she be forced to return to her family’s fold, Huda reached out to UNHCR through HOOD (Yemen’s most prominent rights group), calling on the organization to grant her asylum on humanitarian ground.
As per defined in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) which regulates asylum cases, “Any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, is outside any country in which such person habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”
Her certificate of asylum in hand, Huda’s lawyers will now set out to free her from jail where she has been detained on charges of illegally entering the country.