No Strong Commitment from Govt to Protect Indonesian Workers?

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - The Indonesian government must have a firm attitude towards the Saudi authority’s decision over Ruyati, a domestic helper who was executed on Saturday on charges of murder, a legal observer said.

Professor of international law of the University of Indonesia, Hikmahanto Juwana, said here on Sunday that the government needed to take a firm attitude because the execution was carried out without notifying the Indonesian embassy in Riyadh. He stated that if the government had a strong commitment to protecting Indonesian migrant workers it would not be enough to summon the Saudi ambassador in Indonesia over the matter.

"The government can show its firmness by terminating the sending of its migrant workers to Saudi Arabia. It could also take a diplomatic action to show its inconvenience of the treatment its citizens had received," he said.

He said Indonesia could recall its ambassador in Saudi Arabia or reduce the number of its diplomatic staff there, without the need to terminate diplomatic ties. Ruyati binti Satubi was executed on Saturday after she was proven to have murdered her employer’s wife Khoiriyah Omar Moh Omar Hilwani.

The Indonesian Consulate General in Jidda had done its best to provide legal aid to prevent the domestic helper from execution by beheading. The consulate general has submitted a request to the Saudi Board of Pardon (Lajnatul Afwu) to acquit Ruyati from the death penalty. Yet her family members did not to give a pardon.

Ruyati who was sent to Saudi Arabia by manpower supplier firm PT Dasa Graha Utama had killed Khoriyah on January 12, 2010 by stabbing her head and neck several times with a machete and kitchen knife.