By Michael Koziol
Australia is considering granting a visa to Saudi teenager Rahaf al-Qunun after a United Nations agency found the 18-year-old detained at Bangkok airport is a genuine refugee.
Late on Wednesday the Department of Home Affairs confirmed the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had referred Ms al-Qunun for potential resettlement in Australia.
"The Department of Home Affairs will consider this referral in the usual way, as it does with all UNHCR referrals," it said in a statement.
"The government will be making no further comment on this matter."
Ms al-Qunun's case has captivated the world after she was detained by Saudi authorities at Bangkok airport, where she was planning to travel to Australia to seek asylum.
She had barricaded herself in her hotel room at the airport after claiming a Saudi official confiscated her passport and planned to forcibly return her to her departure point of Kuwait and onwards to her family in Saudi Arabia, whom she feared would kill her.
The Thai government allowed her to enter the country temporarily under the protection of the UNHCR while her case was being assessed.
Throughout the ordeal, Ms al-Qunun pleaded for assistance on social media and has amassed more than 100,000 Twitter followers.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, the first Australian MP to call for Australia to provide refuge to Ms al-Qunun, said it was "time to bring this courageous young woman to Australia to start her life as a free woman".
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton told reporters on Wednesday - before the referral was confirmed - that Australia would consider any referrals from the UN but Ms al-Qunun would not receive any "special treatment".
"Australia is a signatory to the convention and to the protocols, as you know, and we will work with the UN, but there is no special treatment in this case," Mr Dutton said.
"The case will be assessed by the United Nations and ... it doesn't therefore make it different to any other case of that nature."
The decision was a matter for Immigration Minister David Coleman, Mr Dutton said. Comment has been sought from Mr Coleman.
In 2017, a young Saudi woman Dina Ali Lasloom was forcibly returned to her homeland after she was detained at Manila airport in the Philippines, and has since reportedly disappeared.
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