Saudi Arabia jails Indonesian maid after alleged torture

Saudi Arabia jails Indonesian maid after alleged torture

Agencies, Riyadh

An Indonesian maid badly hurt after she was allegedly tortured by
her Saudi employer has been jailed pending trial over "making
false allegations", an embassy official said on late Tuesday.

Nour Miyati, 25, was taken out of hospital in Riyadh on late
Monday and sent to a women's jail, while her embassy was denied
custody, labor attache Mohamad Sugiarto told AFP.

"I will write to the minister of foreign affairs (again
demanding custody) after the head of the investigation team (into
the case) rejected my request to release her into the custody of
the embassy," Sugiarto said.

He said his request had been delivered on Tuesday by a lawyer,
who was told it was turned down.

Nour was reported last March to have been brought to hospital
by her Saudi employer as gangrene spread to several parts of her
body.

She said her employer had tied her hands and feet and
imprisoned her in a bathroom for a month, the English-language
daily Arab News reported on March 23.

He also allegedly severely beat her, damaging her eye and
knocking out several teeth because she failed to clean the house
properly, it added.

Sugiarto said Nour had nine fingers and one toe amputated.

A statement by the Riyadh governor's office issued in May said
Nour and the couple who employed her were to face court after an
enquiry found she had been beaten but not tortured.

According to the statement, Nour retracted charges that she
was tortured and tied up, although a medical committee found
wounds and bruises to her body suggesting she had been the victim
of violence.

The employer's wife admitted to beating Nour's face with a
shoe and investigators also concluded that she had been denied
medical care and proper food.

The couple were charged with neglect, and the wife charged
with beating.

Nour was charged with "making false allegations which misled
the inquiry" and led to the detention of the employer throughout
the investigation before he was freed on bail.

Sugiarto said Nour was in "bad physical and mental condition"
at the time she was reported to have retracted her charges.

He did not know when the trial would start.

Mistreatment of maids is rampant in Saudi Arabia and other
Arab Gulf states.

A recent U.S. State Department report has determined that
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates tolerate
"involuntary servitude or slavery".

The department said Saudi Arabia has failed to protect
domestic workers.

"We have (in Saudi Arabia) domestic workers being brought in
from many countries into domestic servitude, child beggars, a lot
of beating, reports of beatings and rape - very difficult to get
shelter, no convictions," said John Miller, the senior adviser
for human trafficking at the State Department.

New York-based Human Rights Watch alleged in July 2004 that
foreign workers in Saudi Arabia were systematically abused and
exploited. The oil-rich kingdom denies such charges.

Sugiarto said he regularly receives complaints of maltreatment
and non-payment of salary from housemaids, who make up some 90
percent of around 600,000 Indonesians in the country.