Dozens of activists representing various NGOs and religious institutions met yesterday to pray for an Indonesian migrant worker beheaded three days ago in Saudi Arabia.
A Saudi Arabia-based website quoted the Saudi Ministry of the Interior as saying that Ruyati was executed in the western province of Mecca on Saturday for killing her employer's wife with a machete.
The ministry claimed Ruyati confessed to her crime and that the death sentence was endorsed by the Cassation Court and Supreme Court in Saudi Arabia.
“On behalf of the Bishops’ Conference of Indonesia (KWI), I convey my deep condolences to her family. I also pray that God receives her spirit,” Father Antonius Benny Susetyo, executive secretary of the KWI’s Commission for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, said during the prayer meeting.
According to him, the KWI joined the event because the bishops care about Indonesian migrant workers facing various cases including death penalty every year.
“We reject the death penalty. We respect human dignity,” he asserted.
Also conveying deep condolences was Yenny Wahid, executive director of the Wahid Institute. She later said: “I urge the government to immediately deal with cases of death penalty faced by 22 Indonesian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia.”
She also hoped that Ruyati will be the last Indonesian migrant worker that underwent a death penalty.
Meanwhile, Anis Hidayah from the Migrant Care asked the government to bring the corpse of Ruyati back to Indonesia. “The Migrant Care and activists are raising funds to support this cause,” she said.
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