Soleha's beheading condemmed

JAKARTA (JP): About 40 people demonstrated yesterday outside the Saudi Arabian Embassy demanding an explanation for the beheading of Indonesian worker Soleha Anam in Mecca last week.

The protesters, members of 14 local nongovernmental organizations, have formed a consortium called Kopbumi (an Indonesian acronym for the consortium of migrant workers defenders).

"The Saudi Arabian government must explain it (the execution) to the Indonesian public," the consortium said in a statement.

A member of the consortium presented the statement to the Saudi Ambassador, Abdullah Abdulrahman Alim, who met the group outside the embassy and invited a delegation to discuss the case with him.

The consortium said in its statement that secrecy surrounding Soleha's trial and her execution raised doubts over the validity of the trial.

"Migrant workers have died and they did not have the chance to defend their rights," the statement said. "Ignoring their deaths is tantamount to preserving the violation of human rights."

Soleha, 30, originally from Malang in East Java, entered Saudi Arabia legally in 1993 as a worker channeled by the Indonesian labor supply agency, PT Andromeda Graha.

In 1994 she was found guilty by a Mecca court of murdering her employer with an ax and was sentenced to death.

News of her plight only became available here after her execution last Tuesday, when AFP carried an announcement of her death from Saudi Arabia's interior ministry.

The Indonesian Embassy in Saudi Arabia was able to confirm the report only after reading the news in local newspapers Al Jazirah and Arab News.

Ambassador Abdullah Alim told a representative of the consortium that he would tell his government to provide a "full explanation" of Soleha's trial to the Indonesian Embassy in Riyadh.

Speaking in Arabic, the ambassador said through an interpreter he was sure that Soleha's trial had been conducted "fairly" and without any discrimination caused by Soleha being a foreigner.

"I can also guarantee that she (Soleha) had the chance to defend herself," he said.

He said the fact that the Saudi government also executed a Saudi man on the same day Soleha was beheaded showed that his government did not discriminate against foreigners.

Saudi Arabia's policy of executing murderers, rapists, armed robbers and drug traffickers was based on Islamic principles, he said.

The ambassador said the 500,000 Indonesian workers in Saudi Arabia constituted 25 percent of expatriates working there.

Human rights organizations have expressed concern over the reported lack of support given to Soleha by the embassy during and after her trial. (aan)