Saudi regime beheads mentally ill Indonesian worker

Executed: Indonesia and human rights groups are furious that Saudi Arabia executed domestic worker Siti Zainab without notifying the country's officials or her family

The Saudi regime does not spend all its time killing factory workers in Yemen … and killing refugees in Yemen … and killing womem, children and other civilians in Yemen … and flogging Saudi human rights activists for blogging … and flogging Saudi women for driving cars … and beheading poor Pakistanis.

Today, they found time in their busy schedule for beheading an Indonesian woman.

From the Daily Mail in England:

Saudi Arabia condemned for beheading ‘mentally ill’ migrant worker who killed her employer… which campaigners say was an act of self defence

Siti Zainab was executed in holy city of Medina after 15 years on death row

Sentenced to death for stabbing to death an employer who ‘mistreated her’

Indonesia is furious its officials and her family weren’t notified beforehand

Amnesty International says the beheading shows a ‘basic lack of humanity’

By Jay Akbar

06:31 GMT, 15 April 2015 | Updated: 13:46 GMT, 15 April 2015

Saudi Arabia has been condemned for beheading an Indonesian domestic worker who was ‘suffering from mental illness’.

Her home country’s leadership is furious that Siti Zainab’s family was not notified before her execution this morning – and summoned Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to complain about her death.

While Amnesty International says her killing in the holy Islamic city of Media this morning ‘smacks of a basic lack of humanity’.

The domestic worker was sentenced to death in 1999 after confessing to stabbing her employer who allegedly mistreated her to death.

She was on death row for over 15 years while Saudi Arabian authorities waited for the victim’s youngest child to reach adulthood – to decide whether or not the family wanted to pardon Zainab or demand her execution.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo and three of his predecessors had previously written to the Saudi king asking for the victim’s family to forgive Zainab.

But the sentence was carried out despite their claims that Zainab’s family and officials were not given adequate notice or information before she was killed.

Indonesia’s foreign ministry released a statement saying: ‘From the beginning, the government has struggled to provide her with assistance and has asked the family [of the victim] for forgiveness.

‘The Indonesian government filed a protest against the Saudi Arabian government for not giving prior notification to Indonesian representatives or to the family over the execution date.’ …

Before her arrest, Zainab sent two separate letters to her employer’s son to say the woman she eventually killed had been cruel to her.

A UN resolution has urged states not to execute or impose the death penalty ‘on a person suffering from any form of mental disorder’.

‘Imposing the death penalty and executing someone with a suspected mental illness smacks of a basic lack of humanity,’ according to Amnestry International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme Director.

Philip Luther added: ‘This practice has been widely condemned on the world stage and Saudi Arabia should take this opportunity to reconsider its stance on the death penalty.’

She had no legal representation at any stage and did not have access to a consular representative during the police interrogation when she had made her ‘confession’, according to Amnesty.

They claim the police knew she suffered from mental illness at the time of the interrogation.

The charity’s 2014 global report on the death penalty released earlier this month said Saudi Arabia once again ranks among the top five executioners in the world.

So far in 2015, Saudi Arabia has executed at least 60 people, most of them by beheading which compares to 90 executions in the entirety of 2014.

Philip Luther added: ‘Whatever the misguided purpose behind Saudi Arabia’s shocking spike in executions so far this year, it should draw international condemnation.

‘The Kingdom’s authorities must halt this execution spree and establish an official moratorium on the use of the death penalty.’