Thailand has a history of sending refugees back to autocratic countries, including China, Pakistan and Turkey, said the deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, Phil Robertson.

In November, the Thai authorities arrested a former Bahrain soccer player, Hakeem al-Araibi, who had been granted refugee status in Australia after speaking out against a powerful Bahraini soccer official.

Mr. Araibi had come to Thailand for his honeymoon but was stopped at the same Bangkok airport as Ms. Alqunun after Bahrain sought his arrest through Interpol. He remains in custody, awaiting a decision on Bahrain’s extradition request.

“Basically, Thailand is open for business sending refugees and asylum seekers back to their authoritarian governments,” Mr. Robertson said.

In the interview, Ms. Alqunun described a life of unrelenting abuse at the hands of her family, who live in the city of Hail, in northern Saudi Arabia. She said she was once locked in a room for six months because she had cut her hair in a way that her family did not approve of. And she said her family used to beat her, mostly her brother.

Saudi Arabia, Ms. Alqunun said, is “like a prison.”

“I can’t make my own decisions,” she said. “Even about my own hair I can’t make decisions.”

Ms. Alqunun said that when she was 16, she tried to kill herself. When her family did not seek help for her, she said, she started planning her escape.