Four Sri Lankan workers beheaded in Saudi Arabia

An estimated 350,000 Sri Lankans are working in Saudi Arabia and make up a significant portion of the 8.8 million foreigners living and working in the country. According to the report, Bad Dreams—Exploitation and abuse of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, published by Human Rights Watch in July 2004, foreign nationals account for 67 percent of the workforce and hold 90 to 95 percent of private-sector jobs. Most come from South Asia and Africa to escape rising unemployment and poverty.

The overwhelming majority are poorly paid and heavily indebted, due to the exorbitant fees charged by recruiting agencies. They often work as cleaners in hospitals and schools, as plumbers, carpenters, labourers and garbage collectors. Women are often engaged as domestic servants, assistants in beauty salons and as seamstresses. The report stated that migrant workers were often paid far lower salaries than promised and subjected to long working hours—up to 12 hours or more daily without overtime. Many instances were cited of salaries being unpaid for months and medical care being denied, although complaints are rarely made for fear of summary dismissal.

In these circumstances, the use of the medieval Islamic law, including the death penalty and other brutal forms of punishment, serves a very definite political purpose. Whatever its religious justification, this legal system is being exploited by the autocratic Saudi regime to intimidate and terrorise the flood of cheap immigrant labour, on whom the country’s small wealthy elite is increasingly dependent.

The four Sri Lankan workers were publicly executed for allegedly “forming a criminal gang which robbed a number of companies and threatened accountants and workers with weapons, shooting one of them and stealing his car”. They were arrested in March 2004 and convicted by an Islamic religious court in October of the same year.

After these sentences were upheld in March 2005, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) issued a statement, urging the Sri Lankan government to intervene to save the lives of Pushpakumara, Corea and De Silva. The fourth prisoner, Sangeeth Kumara, was not mentioned because he was not sentenced to death by the court, but was serving a 15-year prison sentence. The AHRC said the prisoners had received penalties far more severe than international legal standards, and those of their home country.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/sril-f26.shtml