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SAUDI ARABIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION TAKES UP THE CASE OF RIZANA NAFEEK GIVING NEW HOPE FOR THE GIRLBy Walter JayawardhanaThe case of Rizana Nafeek the Sri Lankan maid convicted to be beheaded
for the death of an infant she was looking after while bottle feeding
in Saudi Arabia has now being taken up by an independent human rights
commission in Saudi Arabia . “This gives much hope in saving the teenager since they would
be in a position to end all litigation and bring forth a pardon for
her from the family,” said Basil Fernando , the Executive Director
of the Hong Kong based Asian Human Rights Commission. In other developments , the Sri Lankan Ambassador in Riyadh , A.M.J.Sadiq
has had discussions on Rizana Nafeek with the Acting Minister of Interior
Affairs of Saudi Arabia Prince Ahamed Bin Azees. In an interview with the Sinhala service of the BBC Basil Fernando
, who was also instrumental in collecting the legal fees for the girl
from philanthropists to hire a Saudi Arabian lawyer to file an appeal
said, as he understood the commission which is empowered to advise the
king on related matters is of the opinion that the Rizana Nafeek’s
death sentence was a mistake. Basil Fernando said the Commission will also be able to negotiate this
matter with the infant’s family as the prerogative power in ending
all the litigation in this case rested with them. He said under Arabic law the ultimate power to say they were pardoning
the girl and thereby releasing the girl rests with the family in which
the death occurred. He said no other case in the history aroused so much interest around
the globe protesting about the verdict of the court. Fernando said one group alone , has been able to send 27,000 emails
protesting about the sentence and requesting the Saudi authorities to
acquit her. Basil Fernando said that the Sri Lanka government is in the wrongful
opinion that they cannot intervene in the judicial proceedings in another
country. But he said Sri Lanka is a signatory to the Vienna Convention
of Consular Relations and under that it gives the right to the country
to represent its citizens in the foreign courts of law. Fernando was
commenting on the four other Sri Lankan citizens including a woman who
are waiting in the death row to be beheaded in Saudi Arabia. He said
that the country should seriously think of an insurance scheme to hire
lawyers to represent its citizens when they are accused of crimes in
the Saudi Arabian courts. None of those people who are sentenced to
be beheaded had no legal representation at the initial stages of the
cases, Fernando said. Rizana Nafeek , then a 17 year old school girl studying in Sapi Nagar
School near the port city of Trincomalee left school with high ambitions
of building a decent house for the family to replace the mud hut they
were living in and educating the other siblings well. Her wood cutter
father and the family was living in abject poverty. She went abroad
to be a house maid but in addition to the work she was also entrusted
of looking after the baby in which she was utterly inexperienced. Human
Rights organizations think the baby died of choking milk because of
her inexperience. |
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