Ramos slams UAE flag-burning protest over maid
Ramos slams UAE flag-burning protest over maid
MANILA (AFP): Philippine President Fidel Ramos yesterday slammed protesters who burned United Arab Emirates flags as he named a special Moslem envoy to the Middle East to plead for condemned Filipino maid Sarah Balabagan.
The 16-year-old Moslem girl was sentenced to death in the Emirates last weekend for stabbing to death her employer.
"The main effort of every Filipino now is to help Sarah through our collective efforts. And such instances as flag- burning which may still be happening certainly should be condemned by all of us," he told a news conference.
"Even if these are legitimate manifestations of protest over the unfair decision on Sarah, we must not exacerbate her situation. We may be adding to her misery," he added.
Some Filipinos charged that protesters who burned UAE flags were to blame for the girl's fate.
Abner Afuang, a policeman who had burned one UAE flag outside the country's consulate here, said on local television yesterday that he would end his protest actions so as not to hurt the chances of Balabagan's acquittal on appeal.
Earlier, Ramos named retired Supreme Court justice Abdulwahid Abidin to plead for Balabagan's life.
The UAE court said in a retrial there was no evidence to back the maid's claims that she killed in self-defense after her boss tried to rape her.
UAE President Sheikh Zayed ibn Sultan al-Nahayan canceled an earlier verdict from June sentencing Balabagan to seven years in jail for manslaughter and backing her claim of rape.
Abidin, a career jurist, was vested with "full powers to include his rendering of legal support and counsel," and was also tasked to plead for the cause of other Filipino workers in Islamic countries, Ramos said.
Abidin will leave for the Emirates along with three members of the cabinet led by Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon, but the date of their departure has yet to be announced.
The Philippine government is anxious to avoid another execution, which would be the second this year involving a Filipina maid.
Manila downgraded diplomatic ties with Singapore in March after it rejected its appeal to re-investigate the case of Flor Contemplacion, who was subsequently executed for two 1991 murders which many Filipinos alleged she did not commit.
An Islamic court in the city of Al-Ain has set Oct. 30 to hear Balabagan's appeal, her lawyer Mohammad al-Amin said in Dubai last Tuesday. He expressed hope that the girl would be reprieved.
Meanwhile, a Kuwait Airways plane has flown to the Philippines about 55 Filipina maids who had fled their employers to take refuge in their embassy in Kuwait City, the Kuwait Times newspaper reported.
The group was accompanied on Sunday by four senior officials from the Kuwaiti immigration services, who will hold talks in Manila with their Filipino counterparts.