Requested to an intervention to save the life of a young Sri Lankan girl, Rizana Nafeek
by Basil Fernando
(November 24, Hong Kong, Sri Lnaka Guardian) To all Honourable Ambassadors and Consul Generals Serving In Saudi Arabia
I am making this appeal on behalf of the Asian Human Rights Commission to request your kind intervention to save the life of a young Sri Lankan girl, Rizana Nafeek who is facing beheading in Saudi Arabia.
This young girl comes from a war thorn village in the Eastern Sri Lanka who due to the destitute poverty of her family, was sent for work in Saudi Arabia when she was seventeen years old (17). Within month of Rizana's arrival, the four months old infant in her care choked ad she was bottle-feeding him. Due to her inexperience and young age, she failed to rescue the infant, who tragically died. This young girl only spoke her native Tamil language and she was unable to explain herself adequately in the first instance at the police station. Unfortunately, the tragedy was therefore believed to be a crime and she was charged with murder and sentenced to death in 2007. The death sentence was recently confirmed in after a highly criticisable process in court. Consequently, she is likely to be executed anytime soon unless she is pardoned by His Royal Highness King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia. The Hon. President of Sri Lanka has announced that he has appealed to His Royal Highness to pardon Rizana Nafeek.
We are also appealing to him to take the special circumstances of the case into consideration and intervene on behalf of this young girl to save her life.
Kindly see attached documents for further details on the sad case of this young girl.
Thank you
Sincerely Yours
Basil Fernando
Director, Policy and Programmes
Asian Human Rights Commission. Hong Kong
Summary of the case
Coming from a poor and war-torn family Rizana Nafeek went to Saudi Arabia as a maid in May 2005. A recruitment agency in Sri Lanka altered her date of birth in her passport making her 23 years-of-age in order to employ her, when in fact she was only 17 at the time. When the infant of her employers died in her care, a confession of murder was drawn from Rizana under harsh treatment and without a proper translator at the police station. On this ground, she was charged with murder and sentenced to death by beheading in 2007. After getting access to a lawyer and being able to express the circumstances in Tamil, the confession was later retracted. According to Nafeek, the child suffocated while being bottle-fed and due to her lack of experience and young age, she was unable to save him. The case was appealed enabled by funds from human rights groups. However, after a highly questionable and arbitrary process in court, the death sentence was confirmed in late October 2010.
A Few Selected Articles from Saudi and Sri Lankan press on the case of Rizana Nafeek
Sri Lanka: Who will take responsibility for Rizana Nafeek?
By Dr. Hatoon Ajwad AL FASSI (Ph.D). The writer is an Assistant Professor, Women's History, History Dept., King Saud University.
Source: WLUML networkers
(Translation from the Arabic original)
November 13, 2010, Riyadh.
We have the right as human beings to ask about the souls of other humans that are being wasted unjustly. And it is our right to in a State of law and order to ask about the rights of these souls. Follows to that the souls of all human beings, whether they belong to us or to other nations since we belong to the religion of justice, and since we worship a God who prohibited injustice on himself. I bring today the following facts about a death of a 4 months old infant. He lost his right to live due to the fact that those who were in entrusted to keep him safe and healthy did not carry their trust as should. Instead, they gave the responsibility to a young girl or in other words, a minor.
This housemaid was only 17 years and her experience or training in that field of childcare was not certain. Though her age was appearing as 23 years in the relevant documents, her actual age is only 17 years. In two weeks of arriving in Dawadmi (a remote Saudi town in central Arabia), from Sri Lanka (May 2005) and assuming her duties as housemaid, Rizana Nafeek was given the responsibility of looking after the said infant alone without supervision. However, we are not sure whether she was given any training in that field within that short period of 2 weeks, and if so, in what language.
In consequence, the infant suddenly one day choked, and the housemaid was not aware as to what action of remedy to be taken she called for help, but unfortunately, the infant had passed away before its mother arrived at the scene. What is known about the case afterwards was that the family reported on the maid accusing her of murdering and suffocating their infant. Then in the absence of a translator, she signed a confession admitting the charge. Consequently, she was arrested and jailed in 2005 pending the Court's Judgment, until last week, when the High Court has endorsed a death sentence as per news appeared in the 'Arab News' newspaper in 25th Oct 2010.
Appeals, since then, were made by the Human Rights Organizations and Sri Lankan Representatives requesting His Majesty the King of Saudi Arabia to pardon her or to reconsider the matter, and to revise her sentence in the light of evidence that was not previously considered.
As the citizens of this country, we ask if not the decision on her life was taken in a hurry? And whether there were not some responsible parties that were not accused along with her. Or why partial Judgment has been taken against her. I also understand that a delegation headed by the Hon Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in Sri Lanka appealed to the parties concerned in K.S.A. requesting that this matter be taken up in the Appeal Court, in 2007, and that, this also had failed. The family asked a Saudi lawyer to defend the maid.
The following doubts arise as a result of this case that I wish the court will be kind to listen to:
* What is the Judgment for the parents of the infant who also should be held responsible for this incident as negligent?
* How do non-Arab workers in the country communicate in court? In what language? Human rights groups are objecting to the method and are blaming the Saudis for not providing the right translators to translate her defense against the accusations.
* What is the Judgment for the Proprietor of the Recruiting Agency who arranged her employment preparing false documents about the age?
* Nevertheless there is an equal responsibility held against the parents of the housemaid for the preparation of false documents about her age?
* In consideration of above questions, how could this housemaid is given such a severe Judgment?
* Why could not the Court consider imposing a fine as this incident had taken place due to ignorance and without intention?
We should also find out the background of the circumstances as to how this young girl of 17 years came to be employed as housemaid in the K.S.A.
She has come from Mutur in East Sri Lanka, where majority are Tamil people. She belongs to the Muslim minority, which were caught in the midst of the Tamil's civil war against the state. She comes from a family who has suffered for over 3 decades due to terrorism. Although the Muslims had no connection with the Terrorists in that place, nearly 35,000 Muslims were forced out from their homes by the Terrorists. Several thousands of Muslims were also killed by them mercilessly. They also prohibited the Muslims from engaging in Fishing, Cultivation and Fire-wood cutting. As a result, the Muslims faced very serious financial problems, without any help or assistance from the Government. This housemaid, Rizana Nafeek, is one of those who left for K.S.A. for employment due to the need for a breadwinner.
We kindly appeal to the juridical Authorities concerned to reconsider this matter sympathetically and give redress to this young poor girl.
We will have to face consequences if we do not reconsider this matter and do justice.
We also earnestly appeal that all those who are responsible in this matter should be inquired.
May Allah bless the infant, and give strength to its parents to be patient.
Finally, what is the stand or end of our personal responsibility towards the foreign labour, with whom we share our life, for good or for worse?
Rizana Nafeek, the Sri Lankan maid, I never met
By Abdulateef Al-Mulhim, Commodore (Ret.,). Royal Saudi Navy.
Source: Sri Lanka Guardian. October 31, 2010, Alkhobar.
When I first heard of the death of a Saudi infant at the hands of a Sri Lankan maid named Rizana Nafeek about four years ago, I looked at the word "child abuse" and what it meant.
I found out that "child abuse" could come in any form and shape.
A child could be abused by a maid, a stranger or a family member.
I felt so sorry for the parents of the infant. And no matter how sorry I was and still am, there is no way that I could fathom their anger and grief. I hope they get over it. I write not as a Saudi siding with a Saudi but as a human being feeling terrible at the loss of an innocent infant. And I do pray to Allah to give them comfort and the infant in heaven.
Later on the tragedy became worse and the court found out that this poor Sri Lankan maid had to put an earlier birth date in her passport just to be able to travel and make whatever little money she could make to support her family. I cannot imagine how desperate she was to do something like this, but poverty can make you do anything.
Of course, I do not know the details of the circumstances in which all this happened or the whole story.
The Sri Lankan maid had spent a very short time in the Kingdom before the death of the infant and because of her young age, I am sure she had no experience whatsoever of how to behave in a Saudi society or feed an infant. It takes a long time to be adjusted to a life in a different country and with a different family. I tasted homesickness when I was going to schools in the US even though I was living in the best places and I know this because at that time I did have two Indonesian maids, though my family never called them maids. We considered them part of the family. And when they first came we gave them time to adjust and to overcome culture shocks and to get over the homesickness.
When my wife and the two Indonesian ladies felt comfortable with each other and all parties knew how to communicate, then we gave them some responsibilities in the house. As for taking care of infants, it is a totally different story. Raising infants, children and teenagers is not a part-time job. It is a full-time job where you should be available at all hours of the day.
It is very important that the parents not only love their children, but enjoy being with them and enjoy raising them.
Looking at this heart-breaking case with questions about the age of the young maid and the very short time during which all this happened, I would like, as a very humble Saudi, to beg Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah to give pardon to this very young and naive girl from Sri Lanka. Let her be free and return home to be reunited with her family.
I would also ask the parents of the dead infant to forgive this poor young girl of whatever wrong she did. I really do express the deepest and sincere sympathy to you. I pray to Allah to give you comfort and reward you with heaven.
As for the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE), it is very important to be more responsible in choosing people to work abroad. They should send the right people. They should also ensure that the workers selected possess duly authenticated documents to vouch for their personal details such as age and experience.
A plea for Rizana Nafeek
By Paula Fielding,
Source: Arab News. November 5, 2010, Riyadh.
I commend and greatly appreciate the sentiments of Abdullateef Al-Mulhim and Safra Rahuman who wrote (Oct. 31) pleading for clemency for the unfortunate Sri Lankan maid Rizana Nafeek whose death sentence was recently endorsed.
They were only expressing the sentiments of the multitudes here in the Kingdom and outside.
This poor girl should not be made to pay for the tragic death of the infant who choked in her care. I endorse all the points made in Al-Mulhim's article and Rahuman's letter. They were right in emphasizing the fact that Nafeek was to work as a housemaid and should not have been entrusted with the task of looking after an infant when she was not mature enough or qualified to do that.
As a nurse, I can categorically state that young babies can only safely be cared for by experienced and qualified personnel and to expect a novice like Nafeek to care for a young baby was very wrong and extremely unfair to her. There is no doubt that parents must either care for their children themselves or employ suitably qualified staff to do so or otherwise take responsibility and accept the consequences.
As a housemaid, Nafeek clearly had no choice in accepting this duty and was placed in a very difficult position by her employers and it is indeed hugely unjust that she should then be forced to accept punishment for the extremely unfortunate and tragic outcome.
I greatly sympathize with the parents who have lost a child and may, in their grief, seek to blame and bring judgment on another in this matter. Regardless of exactly how the infant's death occurred, the facts are clear. Nafeek was a housemaid and employed to perform domestic chores and definitely not qualified to take care of a young baby. Hard facts yet nevertheless true and as difficult as it may be, the parents must accept these and remember that two wrongs do not make a right.
The loss of their baby is tragedy enough. Do we want a double tragedy?
Far better to forgive and be merciful and to know that God will honor and bless this gesture of good will and heal their grief in time.
I also send a heartfelt plea requesting the parents to please consider showing forgiveness and clemency toward Nafeek and allow her to be released and repatriated to her own country with their blessing and that of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah.
Rizana Nafeek and Suu Kyi
By Suriya Wickremasinghe; a lawyer, is a founder member (1971) and current (volunteer) Secretary of the Civil Rights Movement of Sri Lanka. She is a former Chairperson of the International Executive Committee of Amnesty International.
Source: Sri Lanka Guardian, November 21, 2010.
The sparing of young Rizana Nafeek from beheading in Saudi Arabia, and her return home to her family in eastern Sri Lanka, is all we need now to complement our relief and joy at the release of Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar. It is heartening to read reports that the King of Saudi Arabia has, subsequent to world-wide appeals, including from our own President Rajapakse and reportedly Prince Charles of the UK, asked Saudi officials to hold talks with the bereaved Saudi family, whose four month old infant died after the 17 year old maid was asked to bottle-feed it. This tragedy took place less than three weeks after young Rizana's arrival in Saudi Arabia in May 2005.
Though this case may raise larger issues, these have to be addressed later. What is vital now is making every effort to spare Rizana's life. One wonders whether enough attention has been given to the likelihood that Rizana was in a seriously traumatized state herself? Bad enough that she was the eldest child of a family living in the direst poverty in Mutur, a small multi-ethnic town in the Trincomalee District of North East Sri Lanka. Their sole income was from wood-collecting in the forest. Do we realize that this under-age girl was sent abroad (on a forged birth certificate) less than five months after the tsunami that caused particularly appalling devastation on our east coast? How far has it sunk into us that she had suffered living in a war torn area all her life? Do we have any conception of the extent to which the society in which she grew up has been continuously ravaged by decades of armed conflict? How this started even before she was born? (See annex for more info rmation). Have we thought of what it must have been like for her to arrive in Saudi Arabia, in a totally alien environment, unable to speak or understand the language, in a desperate effort to help her destitute parents and three younger siblings? Have we been sufficiently conscious of all these extra factors which require heightened sympathy for her and her desperate family?
Those involved in trying to save Rizana need to be aware of these considerations and emphasise them in their efforts. This background must be communicated to the parents of the baby, who most certainly deserve and must be told of our sympathy in their bereavement, and who have the power to spare Rizana's life. Whatever the outcome, these factors need to be taken to heart by all of us in Sri Lanka, who I fear may have failed poor, lonely, Rizana Nafeek now in her fifth year of incarceration with a public beheading her very possible fate.
The writer, a lawyer, is a founder member (1971) and current (volunteer) Secretary of the Civil Rights Movement of Sri Lanka. She is a former Chairperson of the International Executive Committee of Amnesty International.
ANNEX
SOME BACKGROUND RE MUTUR
Rizana Nafeek was sent to Saudi Arabia in May 2005. What follows gives some idea of the times she had personally lived through, the horrors starting from before she was born. After she left, Mutur went through even more tragedy, which is not gone into here, although it must certainly have affected her already distraught family.
Nirupama Subramanian in THE HINDU 21 October 2003
The little fishing town of Mutur in Trincomalee in eastern Sri Lanka presents a clear picture of the current dynamic between the Tigers and Muslims. Trincomalee district has an even mix of Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese.
Mutur, a one-hour boat ride from Trincomalee town across the waters of a wide bay, is home to 60,000 people, some 33,000 are Muslim, 22,000 Tamils and a thousand Sinhalese. Most of the Muslims are settled in the main town. Most of the Tamils live in the areas around it. After the ceasefire, Mutur was the scene of two major clashes between the two communities. The first incident came within months of the ceasefire. A concrete cross outside Mutur town was vandalised. Tamils, led by the Tigers, and Muslims clashed over the desecration. There were incidents of stone-throwing. Houses were damaged, a mosque was desecrated. The LTTE's office at Mutur, which had just then been opened under the terms of the ceasefire accord, came in for some stone-throwing. The violence spread to Valaichenai in Batticaloa where it assumed more serious proportions with fully armed Tamils fighting Muslims, resulting in deaths and injuries to many.
The tensions from that flare-up simmered till April this year when two Muslim youth from a fishing hamlet near Mutur disappeared after putting out to sea. Their families learnt that the two were being held by the Tigers in Sambur, an LTTE-controlled area. They visited Sambur every day to plead with the Tigers for the boys' release. Two weeks later, after the mother of one committed suicide triggering off riots in Mutur, the Tigers denied the boys were in their custody. By then, three people had died, houses and other property burnt and destroyed, and the divide between Mutur's Muslims and Tamils complete.
From The Muttur tragedy: A re-examination? by GH Pieris
..... the history of serious clashes between the Muslims and Tamils of Muttur could be traced back to 1987 when a communal conflagration was ignited by the killing of a Muslim civil servant and the abduction of several Muslims, allegedly by LTTE cadres making their presence felt in the area. Thereafter, in the early 1990s, when the LTTE put into operation its programme of "ethnic cleansing" of the "north-east" (this was the era of the large-scale Mosque massacres" in Batticaloa District and of mass eviction of Muslims from Mannar), there were several spells of violence in the Muttur-Sampur-Toppur area which, however, did not cause "internal displacement" on the same massive scale witnessed in Batticaloa and Mannar. There was, in response, the formation of militias bearing names such as "Jihad" and "Al Fatah" reported from some of the main Muslim areas of the east at that time.
SRI LANKA: An appeal to save the life of the young girl facing death sentence in Saudi Arabia
By Malinda Senevitane. Source: Daily News. November 4, 2010
It is the nature of the engagement that makes enemies and friends and therefore some circumspection is called for when one reacts to or grapples with things 'foreign', especially in matters that are clearly located, politically and geographically on 'foreign soil'
There is a thing called cultural specificity. Different people in different places and different time, made of different sensibilities and values, have different preferences. There’s been a lot of intercourse among cultures; enough to know that there are commonalities just as there are differences; but still cultural specificities do have hard colours and are wont to paint rules and regulations and even laws in starkly different hues. This is why the adage 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do' still has currency, so many centuries after that empire collapsed.
We have to respect the laws of other countries, even when they seem ridiculous and inhuman. This is basic. This does not mean of course that we are required to remain silent about the way others go about their business, especially if their 'laws' and 'cultural preferences' impact us in some way. It is the nature of the engagement that makes enemies and friends and therefore some circumspection is called for when one reacts to or grapples with things 'foreign', especially in matters that are clearly located, politically and geographically (if not ethically) on 'foreign soil'.
Domestic worker
I am thinking of Rizana Nafeek, the Sri Lankan domestic worker who has been sentenced to death by the Saudi Arabian courts for the crime of murdering an infant. Rizana, at the time, was a minor, although this is not indicated in her passport for it was forged in order to secure employment. For some that would be a technicality whose worth is assessed in terms of the impact of this in securing a possible pardon for the girl. In a broader sense, the issue of Rizana's age serves to indict a number of State institutions that are mandated to streamline things pertaining to foreign employment and identification.
There are cracks in the system allowing minors to get passports. We can play blame-someone-else, but we must at some point come to terms with the fact that there is a huge systemic flaw that forces parents to send their underage children abroad for employment in high-risk situations and encourage them to engage in all manner of wrongdoing in the process. We must admit that for all the efficiency we see at Immigration and Emigration Department in processing passport applications, there are thousands of people who have more than one passport.
Employment agencies
We must acknowledge that many employment agencies are not just run by racketeers but crooks enjoying political patronage and therefore protection. We know that the system is full of loopholes where a crack down on errant agencies just results in the same crooks setting up office elsewhere under a different name for a paltry sum of money so they can carry on from where they stopped.
None of this helps Rizana of course. I am and have always been a strong opponent of the death penalty but that doesn't help Rizana either. We have our laws, the Saudis have theirs. There is crime and there is punishment and we can argue and argue about absence of a sense of proportion and the need to take cognizance of all factors including the age of the accused/guilty. It won't help Rizana. There are moves, I am told, at the top end of political life, the highest in the land and big names in the international community. These might bear fruit. I hope.
Islamic faith
I am thinking of Rumi. I am thinking of the Sufi mystics. I am thinking of Hafiz of Shiraz, of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, Khayyam and other poets all inspired one way or another by the Islamic faith.
I am thinking of human frailty and the error of assuming interpretive perfection of things considered divine or God-written.
I am remembering a debate on whether or not people should be judged by their peers, a debate that took place in the early eighties at a venue I cannot recall at this time. I remember going to that debate convinced that judgment should come from those who are well versed in the law and legal procedures. I remember listening to two teams of three persons each debating the matter. I remember only two names, Colvin R De Silva and Sarath Muttetuwegama, the first and third speakers respectively from the team insisting that people should be judged by their peers.
I am thinking of Rizana Nafeek, the Sri Lankan domestic worker who has been sentenced to death by the Saudi Arabian courts for the crime of murdering an infant. Rizana, at the time, was a minor, although this is not indicated in her passport for it was forged in order to secure employment. For some that would be a technicality whose worth is assessed in terms of the impact of this in securing a possible pardon for the girl. In a broader sense, the issue of Rizana's age serves to indict a number of State institutions that are mandated to streamline things pertaining to foreign employment and identification.
There are cracks in the system allowing minors to get passports. We can play blame-someone-else, but we must at some point come to terms with the fact that there is a huge systemic flaw that forces parents to send their underage children abroad for employment in high-risk situations and encourage them to engage in all manner of wrongdoing in the process. We must admit that for all the efficiency we see at Immigration and Emigration Department in processing passport applications, there are thousands of people who have more than one passport.
Incomplete creatures
It won't help Rizana, I know. I hope, though, that a culture which produced Rumi, Hafiz, Ghalib and which provoked the stoning of death of Mansur Al Hallaj and yet revere him as saint would have the few drops of pity and empathy to consider the possibility that this judgment is wrong.
I hope that those who have the power will step back and recognize that while laws there should be, the one sentence that cannot be revoked or compensated for if error is ascertained at a later date should perhaps be taken out of human hand, if only because we are incomplete creatures, morally and in every other way possible.
I am thinking of Rizana. She's died many deaths already. Punished enough. Taking her eye for the eye she's said to have taken doesn't give sight to anyone. It blinds us all, those of us who execute, who cheer, who object, protest, plead and remain silent. We don't end up richer.
We need not impoverish ourselves.
I am on my knees, before a dead infant and one who might be gone tomorrow; both never to return. I plead to those who have the power. There is nothing else I can do.
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