#SaveRahaf: Last night a retweet saved my life
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 12 January 2019
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Saudi teenager Rahaf al-Qunun was spared deportation after details of her plight were spread on social media while she barricaded herself in a hotel room in Thailand. She feared being killed by her family if she was forced to return to Kuwait. She was saved not by her passport but by her phone, observes Jonathan Head.
Kate Adie introduces this and other stories from correspondents around the world:
Olivia Acland reflects on why the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo may have to wait a little longer than expected to celebrate their country’s first ever democratic transfer of power.
Nick Sturdee examines the split between the Ukrainian and Russian branches of the Orthodox church and has a strange encounter involving a black-robed priest, alleged KGB stooges and a mysterious man in a white car.
Jane Wakefield has a glimpse of what may turn out to be the future – drones delivering much-needed medicines and other supplies to remote African villages.
And Rob Cameron uncovers a disturbing secret about Prague’s cobblestoned streets.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:06.0 | Hello. |
| 0:06.5 | Today, waiting to vote and then waiting for the result, a tense time anywhere, |
| 0:11.8 | as in the Democratic Republic of Congo. |
| 0:14.3 | They've waited two years for an election, |
| 0:16.8 | then about two weeks for the result |
| 0:18.8 | and it's still not clear who will really wield power next. Strange goings on in Ukraine we have the |
| 0:25.6 | tale of KGB Stooges, an Orthodox priest and a mystery man in a white Toyota. |
| 0:30.6 | While in Tanzania we watch a drone delivering vital supplies to a remote |
| 0:36.0 | village, a glimpse of the future perhaps. And then our correspondent in Prague |
| 0:40.6 | stumbles across the secrets hidden within the city's cobble streets. |
| 0:46.8 | This time last week few had heard of Rahaff Al-Kununun, but as the lone Saudi girl barricaded herself in an airport hotel room, people around the world watched her story unfold. |
| 0:58.0 | Now in Canada, the 18-year-old wanted asylum from her country and her family who she said had locked her |
| 1:05.1 | in a room for six months just for cutting her hair. Human rights activists say |
| 1:10.6 | her experience is part of something much bigger. |
| 1:14.1 | One Saudi woman told the BBC, |
| 1:16.0 | Rahav is an inspiration, but she's not the first one who did this and definitely not the |
| 1:20.9 | last one. |
| 1:22.2 | What we are going through is awful. |
| 1:24.4 | Rahaf said she feared her parents would kill her. |
| 1:27.6 | This is how Jonathan Head in Bangkok first heard of her. |
| 1:31.2 | It was lunchtime on Sunday that I got a call from a human rights |
... |
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