{"id":610,"date":"2013-01-23T09:59:55","date_gmt":"2013-01-23T09:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/achrs.org\/english\/2013\/01\/23\/beheading-of-migrant-worker-rizana-nafeek-in-saudi-arabia\/"},"modified":"2013-01-23T09:59:55","modified_gmt":"2013-01-23T09:59:55","slug":"beheading-of-migrant-worker-rizana-nafeek-in-saudi-arabia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/achrs.org\/english\/2013\/01\/23\/beheading-of-migrant-worker-rizana-nafeek-in-saudi-arabia\/","title":{"rendered":"Beheading of migrant worker Rizana Nafeek in Saudi Arabia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span>Saudi Arabia beheaded Rizana Nafeek January 9<sup>th<\/sup> for a murder the Sri-Lankan maid allegedly committed when she was 17. Saudi Arabia is one of three countries, as well as Iran and Yemen, which have executed people for crimes they committed as minors the last five years according to <\/span><span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/en\/death-penalty\/executions-of-child-offenders-since-1990\"><span>statistics<\/span><\/a><\/span><span> by Amnesty International. Rizana Nafeek was in 2007 convicted for the murder of an infant, whom she was caring for in 2005. According to <\/span><span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2013\/01\/08\/saudi-arabia-halt-execution-sri-lankan-migrant-worker\"><span>Human Rights Watch<\/span><\/a><\/span><span> she made a confession under great distress, which she later retracted stating that the baby died in a choking accident while drinking.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>  <!--more-->  <\/p>\n<p><span>The Execution of Rizana Nafeek, which violates <\/span><span><a href=\"http:\/\/www2.ohchr.org\/english\/law\/crc.htm\"><span>International Human Rights Law<\/span><\/a><\/span><span>, has brought to attention the lack of judicial support for migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, and Sri Lanka\u2019s lack of legal support for migrant workers. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><span>An unfair trial<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #111111; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;\">\u201cToday\u2019s beheading of a Sri Lankan domestic worker in Saudi Arabia for a crime she allegedly committed while still a child shows once more that the Gulf kingdom is woefully out of step with international standards on the death penalty\u201d Philip Luther of Amnesty International stated on the day of the execution. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #111111; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;\">Saudi Arabia is a state party to the Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC) and is thus prohibited from imposing death penalty for crimes done by people under the age of 18 years. If there is doubt about the age of an offender the alleged must be treated as a minor if the prosecutor is not able to produce evidence stating the contrary. In the case of Rizana Nafeek the passport she entered Saudi Arabia with states that she was 23 years old, while her birth certificate and a school register, both seen by a <\/span><span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-asia-20959228\"><span style=\"background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;\">BBC-reporter in 2010<\/span><\/a><\/span><span style=\"color: #111111; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;\">, on the other hand confirms that she only was 17 years old at the time of the alleged murder. Human Rights Watch has reported that two recruitment agents have been sentenced to two years prison for the falsification of her documents. <\/span><span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/en\/news\/saudi-arabia-beheading-domestic-worker-shows-country-odds-international-standards-2013-01-09\"><span style=\"background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;\">Amnesty International<\/span><\/a><\/span><span style=\"color: #111111; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;\"> further reports that Rizana Nafeek was not allowed to show this documentation on her trial in 2007, nor did she have a translator who adequately could translate from Arabic to her mother tongue Tamil. Further did she not have a lawyer representing her, and she made the \u201cconfession\u201d after physical assault. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><span style=\"color: #111111; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;\">Migrant workers\u2019 vulnerability<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #111111; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;\">The case is also a sad example of the lack of rights and the vulnerability of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia. According to Amnesty International many of the executed in Saudi Arabia the latest years are migrant workers. <\/span><span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jadaliyya.com\/pages\/index\/9530\/who-failed-rizana-nafeek-\"><span style=\"background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;\">Migrant Rights have suggested<\/span><\/a><\/span><span style=\"color: #111111; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;\"> in the case of Rizana Nafeek that this not only because of Saudi Arabia\u2019s flawed legal system offering few rights to the migrant workers, but also due to Sri Lanka\u2019s lacking of <i>\u201c (&#8230;)<\/i><\/span><i><span style=\"color: #555555;\">any support mechanism for incarcerated nationals precluded the opportunity for a fair trial.\u201d <\/span><\/i><span style=\"color: #555555;\">It is suggested that the Sri Lankan government took action to late by only intervening after she was sentenced to death for certain and the only possibility was an amnesty, rather than helping her in proving her innocence during the trial through a lawyer, who could have pointed out that the death penalty for a juvenile is illegal according to Conventions on the Rights of Children.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #555555;\">The tragedy has been condemned by a number of NGO\u2019s and is a sad reminder of the vulnerability of migrant workers and that executions of juveniles are still taking place in the Middle East. This is contrary to appeals against death penalty and for respect of human right of life by the <\/span><span><a href=\"http:\/\/achrs.org\/english\/index.php\/arab-and-international-mainmenu-46\/international-news-mainmenu-47\/293-arab-coalitions-against-the-death-penalty-calls-on-arab-countries-to-respect-the-right-to-survival-and-to-freeze-the-death-penalty-to-arrive-at-abolish\"><span>Arab coalition against the Death Penalty<\/span><\/a><\/span><span style=\"color: #555555;\"> . <\/span><span style=\"color: #111111; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;\"><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saudi Arabia beheaded Rizana Nafeek January 9th for a murder the Sri-Lankan maid allegedly committed when she was 17. Saudi Arabia is one of three countries, as well as Iran and Yemen, which have executed people for crimes they committed as minors the last five years according to statistics by Amnesty International. Rizana Nafeek was &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletter"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Beheading of migrant worker Rizana Nafeek in Saudi Arabia - Amman Center for Human Rights Studies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/achrs.org\/english\/2013\/01\/23\/beheading-of-migrant-worker-rizana-nafeek-in-saudi-arabia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beheading of migrant worker Rizana Nafeek in Saudi Arabia - Amman Center for Human Rights Studies\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Saudi Arabia beheaded Rizana Nafeek January 9th for a murder the Sri-Lankan maid allegedly committed when she was 17. 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