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Syrian women’s rights campaigner faces deportation and certain death

A SYRIAN refugee living in Leeds faces deportation to Saudi Arabia where she faces almost certain death, campaigners said yesterday.

Raja Khouja a women’s rights campaigner, is detained at the notorious Yarl’s Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire and is threatened with removal to Saudi Arabia on Thursday next week, June 25.

Ms Khouja’s criticism of women’s rights abuses in Saudi Arabia has sparked email and phone threats of death, imprisonment and mutilation — including for her limbs to be severed — if she goes to Saudi Arabia.

She has lived in Leeds with her Saudi husband Mahmoud Alhassan for four years.

Their asylum request is backed by Leeds-based Positive Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers.

A spokesman for the group, who has launched a petition against her removal, said she will be in “extreme danger” if she is deported.

“They are much loved and respected by her community of friends here in Leeds and we are gravely concerned for her safety were she to be removed to Saudi Arabia,” they said.

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