RI REACTS STRONGLY TO SAUDIS BEHEADING MIGRANT WORKER by Fardah

      Jakarta, June 20, 2011 (ANTARA) - The beheading of Ruyati binti Satubi, an Indonesian female migrant worker, in Saudi Arabia has prompted the government to protest the action by recalling its ambassador to the Middle Eastern kingdom.
       "We will recall Ambassador Gatot Abudullah Mansyur from Riyadh, and keep the ambassadorial post in Saudi Arabia vacant until the issue has been cleared up, and the conditions of TKIs placed there are improved. Ambassador Gatot is expected to return home today," Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said at a hearing with the House of Representatives` Commission I at the Parliament Building here Monday.

       As the execution took place on Saturday (June 18) without informing the Indonesian authorities in advance, Indonesia is also to send a formal protest to the Saudi Arabian government.
      In the case of Ruyati, the minister said, Indonesian representatives had tried optimally to ensure that Ruyati`s rights were fully respected during the court proceedings.
       But the Saudi Arabian authorities had executed her without first informing the Indonesian government, he said.
        "And this is not the first time that Saudi Arabia did it. Indians and Nigerians were also executed by Saudi Arabia without first informing their governments," he said.

The minister assured the Parliament that the government would take a firm stance and react strongly to Ruyati`s beheading.

The Indonesian woman was beheaded with a sword on Saturday after being found guilty of killing the wife of her Saudi employer, Khairiya bint Hamid Mijlid, by striking her repeatedly on the head with a meat chopper and stabbing her in the neck, the Saudi interior ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency, AFP reported.

The beheading in the western province of Mecca brings the number of executions in the kingdom this year to 28, according to an AFP tally based on official and human rights group reports.

London-based watchdog Amnesty International called on Saudi Arabia last week to stop applying the death penalty, saying there had been a significant rise in the number of executions carried out over the past six weeks.

It said at least 27 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia in 2011, "the same as the total number of people executed in the whole of 2010. Fifteen people were executed in May alone."

In 2009, the number of executions reached 67, compared to 102 in 2008.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia`s strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.

Over four million Indonesians have become migrant workers (TKI) overseas particularly in Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait.

Poverty and inadequate numbers of jobs in the country are among factors which have forced them to work overseas.

Saudi Arabia currently employs around 927,500 Indonesian migrant workers mostly as housemaids, making it the second biggest user of Indonesian manpower after Malaysia.

Minister Marty told the Parliament that a total of 303 Indonesian migrant workers had been threatened with the death penalty overseas over the past 20 years.

The government had managed to help 12 of them escape the death penalty, the minister said.

"To save hundreds of TKIs who are facing the death penalty, the foreign ministry will form a team to fight at the international level, to prevent the execution of the death sentences," Marty said.

Chairman of the DPR`s Commission I working meeting Mahfud Sidiq on the occasion said the beheading of the Indonesian woman had disturbed the Indonesian people.

"We are disappointed because the government was not aware of the beheading of our migrant worker in Saudi Arabia, last Saturday," he said.

A member of the House of Representatives (DPR)`s Commission I Teguh Juwarno has asked Foreign Affairs Minister Marty Natalegawa to admit failure in protecting Ruyati.

"This is obviously the government`s failure. I ask Minister Marty to be a gentleman and admit his failure, suspend the Indonesian ambassador to Saudi Arabia or resign himself as a gesture of accountability," Teguh Juwarno said in the parliamentary hearing.

The legislator also demanded that the government stop the sending of Indonesian migrant workers (TKI) overseas.

Ruyati`s beheading was proof that the government has failed to protect TKIs, he said.

"We must dare to stop the sending of TKIs abroad, otherwise the foreign ministry will always have to face problems," he said.

Another legislator, Bambang Soesatyo, told the press that a strong protest was not enough but the government must also take a legal action against the Saudi government.

"The government must sue the Saudi government. The government action by giving diplomatic reactions clearly is not enough compared to the humiliation by the Saudi government by beheading Ruyati," Bambang Soesatyo said.

The National Agency for Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI) Head Jumhur Hidayat said earlier the Indonesian Consulate General in Jidda had assisted Ruyati during two of her trial sessions, namely on May 3 and 10, 2010.

The verdict was announced on July 14, 2010, and the Saudi Arabian Supreme Court had upheld the verdict.

The consulate general in Jidda tried to ask for forgiveness from the victim`s relatives through the Forgiveness Institute, but the effort failed, according to Jumhur, who together with the Indonesian ambassador to Saudi Arabia and the manpower and transmigration minister, have become targets of criticism at home for failure in protecting the Indonesian woman in Saudi. ***3***

(F001/A/HAJM/18:05/B003).
(T.F001/A/F001/B003) 20-06-2011 18:30:23