The horrible treatment South Asian workers receive in Arab nations has been receiving more and more press coverage of late. Hopefully, the spotlight will ensure that something changes for the better but until then, it’s our job to bring forward stories like this –
The imminent execution of a teenage maid in Saudi Arabia drew fierce criticism yesterday…According to the Saudi authorities, Rizana Nafeek admitted strangling the four-month-old boy while feeding him with a bottle.
But Nafeek, whose job was not meant to include child care, has denied making any such admission. She claims the child had begun to choke before losing consciousness in spite of her desperate efforts to clear his airway.
Tonight is the deadline for appeals in the case.
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p>This criminal trial is especially ghastly on 2 counts —
Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK, said: “It is an absolute scandal that Saudi Arabia is preparing to behead a teenage girl who didn’t even have a lawyer at her trial. The Saudi authorities are flouting an international prohibition on the execution of child offenders by even imposing a death sentence on a defendant who was reportedly 17 at the time of the alleged crime.“
Prior SM coverage here and here and here.
I heard they kept out Sri Lankan diplomats who came to demand justice for “visa problems”
This is very sad.
Sick to my stomach. Today, I will buy venezuelan oil from a Citgo. Oh, wait, can’t do that either.
Its not surprising that Saudi Arabia wants to behead 17 year old girls when conservatives on the United States Supreme Court want to give the death penalty to juveniles in America. Justice Scalia especially poo pooed the reliance on Amnesty International type prohibitions cited by Vinod here. The case was Roper v. Simmons
Damn, can’t buy gas from Texas Sweet Crude either. Running out of options here.
I lived in Saudi Arabia back in the early 90’s for a good part of my childhood … and I can still remember how detested we Indians were by the locals there… As an immigrant, the rule of thumb was – if you happen to get involved with something unlawful, whether by accident or intentional, you are Done For – and there is nothing anyone can do about it. One of my relatives was involved in an accident, where he hit a young arab boy … we didn’t even know about it for the entire 2 months he spent in prison for it, trying to defend himself.
Adding to the monstrosity that they call the ‘justice system’ is the fact that immigrants find it hard to pick up Arabic…. and ultimately due to the language barrier, you don’t even have your own self to defend yourself against accusations.
The ‘justice’ system lies in the hands of hardline islamic priests, and if you have lived in such a country, you will know how much power these ‘mullahs’ command over the public…and how much fear they produce in the lives of immigrants. All a desi has in Saudi is fellow desis … for friendship, comfort and sanity. Too bad that does no good when you are involved with the law.
I just hope this poor girl’s life is saved in time.
The girl is Muslim not that it would matter.
Saudi Arabia has an especially barbaric criminal law system for everybody but the rich and the connected Saudis. It might be one of the worst places to commit a crime if you are a commoner.
You mean, to be accused of committing a crime.
You mean, to be accused of committing a crime.
True.
And will the world’s moral and human rights leader – US/UK/West invade Saudi Arabia for human right violations and dictatorship in Saudi Arabia ? Leave invasion why not have sanctions like they go overboard with nuclear weapons and whole lot of other issues. No they won’t because the entire west is all cozy with Saudi Arabian kings for oil and their purchase for all kinds of defence products. So from the developing/poor country’s perspective all the human right activitism ( good for the world and is needed/necessary ) is nothing but hypocrisy of the civilized west
I’m against in the death penalty in the US, but ACFD, I don’t think your comparison is fair. There’s difference between the US case where “At age 17, respondent Simmons planned and committed a capital murder. After he had turned 18, he was sentenced to death. ” and this South Asian child in Saudi, who has no legal representation and no way to defend herself.
I feel that when you make the comparison to the US case, it minimizes the horrible injustice this child is going through and the horrible injustice that minorities in Saudi face.
I’m against in the death penalty in the US, but ACFD, I don’t think your comparison is fair. There’s difference between the US case where “At age 17, respondent Simmons planned and committed a capital murder. After he had turned 18, he was sentenced to death. ” and this South Asian child in Saudi, who has no legal representation and no way to defend herself.
I did not equate the incidents. I said I am not surprised considering the fact if the US which has a far more humane and civilized legal system than Saudi Arabia would have advocates for putting the mentally ill and juvenile to deaths its really not that surprising that a country with a primitive legal system like Saudi Arabia would behead 17 year olds.
The US legal system is far better than the one in Saudi Arabia and I would never contest that.
I have huge problems with the death penalty in america, as evidenced by the man in georgia who may die tomorrow for a crime in which witnesses have recanted testimony (though the witnesses present at the time of the crime have not), but this is purely monstrous. the girl most probably did nothing wrong and was by luck person around when the baby choked. For that of course, her south asian life, muslim or not, is worthless enough in saudi arabia that she shall lose her life. screw defense attorneys and that human rights bs,this be the oil rich saudi kingdom, we do what we want biotch.
Randomizer “I lived in Saudi Arabia back in the early 90’s for a good part of my childhood … and I can still remember how detested we Indians were by the locals there”
How did they express their detestation? What brought your family there? I’d be interested to hear more details.
This makes me so angry and so angry that the Indian embassy is so impotent there.
I was in Oman a year ago and we visited a cousin of my mom’s who’d been living there for the past 25 years; He didn’t come with a professional degree, and built a car repair business. Now he is doing well financially and he says it’s a good place to live. I remember his Driver was an Arab boy. But I also know he said that, as a Hindu, you don’t have the same freedoms as the Muslims there. Maybe Oman is better than Saudi as far as its laws for foreigners.
http://digg.com/
its currently on the front page of digg , help her out by please digging it . Also email your senators and reps.
SkepMod, the major companies that you have to boycott is Mobil and Shell. More info on the companies operating in the Saudi can be found here Yes we should buy Citgo..alteast Hugo inspite of all leftist shenanigans which US hates is surely not as bad as Saudis
the conservatives on SCOTUS wanted to uphold your right to vote. nothing in their opinion indicated they favored executing individuals who committed a crime while they were a juvenile.
scalia also noted that international law are more restrictive on abortion, and asked why they were not invoked by the majority in abortion cases.
I said I am not surprised considering the fact if the US which has a far more humane and civilized legal system than Saudi Arabia would have advocates for putting the mentally ill and juvenile to deaths its really not that surprising that a country with a primitive legal system like Saudi Arabia would behead 17 year olds
I think I understand where you’re coming from but I don’t share your sentiments. The US case, where it was proven that the child had planned murder and had lawyers defending him, doesn’t mitigate my surprise (more like horror) about what happens to immigrants in Saudi…this child probably had nothing to do with the child’s death.
The US legal system is far better than the one in Saudi Arabia and I would never contest that – Yes, that is for sure
It so saddens me that these Indians don’t have other choices b/c of poverty than going to that god-forsaken “kingdom”
All the same, Saudi Arabia is essentially a US protectorate – more than that, the current regime there was established with US involvement. The US could do much more to moderate the excesses of the Saudi justice system than it actually does. Sometimes I wonder if the difference between Texas-style justice and Saudi-style justice (two oil-rich, largely desert areas) is more cosmetic than real.
i should add, i’m opposed to the death penalty too. but the constitution does not necessarily endorse my personal moral thinking
@PS #14:
The Middle-east was and continues to be a very attractive destination for South Indians, especially the coastal regions of Kerala and Karnataka. Almost every family in Kerala / Mangalore /Hyderabad has at least one member in either of Kuwait/Saudi/Dubai/Bahrain/Oman … The trend is still very much alive. Obviously, the main reason people go to the gulf is for the money. Taxes are either non-existent or incredibly low because the Royal family is so darn well off. And as has always been the trend with diaspora, family brings more family, and so you see tons of ppl from the south here. Somehow don’t remember many North Indians there.
Anyways, local Arabs hate immigrants … and especially desis (as is the trend even in places like Singapore)… for reasons ranging from ‘they steal our jobs’ to ‘they speak weird languages’ to ‘dark skinned’ … and so on. As for the Hate, I can give you only ones associated with my childhood … I’ve no idea what my parents went through. Arab kids in my building used to actually try to spit on us … even on my parents at times. And as all immigrants in Saudi who ‘don’t want any trouble’, we’d just try to ignore them. Even though our interaction with the locals was kept to a minimum (we went to an Indian school), the few interactions we did have were often racist, spiteful or condescending. We have had mullahs coming up to my dad and telling him to tell my mom to cover her hair with a scarf, so on …
I have tons of more stories to tell about life in Saudi as a desi … will add more if the thread remains active …
We will have to buy oil from Saudi to run all those war machines in order to invade Saudi 🙂 If we impose sanctions then the defence companies are going to run out of business
This makes me sick to da stomach. I know UK Pakistani and Indian lads who are out there now, livin the high life and making bucks whilst some of their brothers and sisters are sweating buckets to make riyads/rupees. They are pig ignorant to it all.
Randomizer, #21
Thanks for answering me. How horrible. I do hope you share more stories of your experiences there. Does your experience influence you sympathies on Arab discrimination in the US? I know, I know, I know, that it doesn’t matter what happens anywhere else…if any citizen in the US is discriminated against than it is terrible for everyone. But I am human and sometimes, sometimes, when I hear horror stories like this, I find myself becoming racist too; but I can pull myself out of that narrow-minded way of thinking. That is another danger of groups discriminating other groups, I suppose.
if this is true, why not just cozy up to saddam, ie remove the sanctions b/f the war and allow saddam to sell more oil and presumably buy more equipment form the US to do so. wouldn’t this be the real oil interest. may help explain why big oil did not clamor for war.
my understanding is that oil is a stateless commodity, ie, it has to enter the world market to be priced so it doesn’t matter who holds it. also, since the US consumes a quarter of the oil, an arab dictator boycotting the US would hurt himself more than the US. (i don’t believe opec has the power or controls nearly the same % of oil it did in 1973.)
Like Randomizer i lived my entire childhood till my late teens in Qatar. I’ve seen first hand the arabs spite for Desis. And I have thousands of stories about abuses suffered by South asian maids and laborers in these lands. The problem is really bad in the Persian Gulf countries which does not speak for the entire Arab nation. The backbone of this country are South Asians. From India its mainly the Southern states (read: Kerala) that produces the highest number for the workforce. 18 years in the country and i did not have one arab kid of my age who i could call friend. These places still have a colonial mentality as far as preference for white skinned individuals go. I still call the place ‘home’ but its now just a word.
Oil sold on world markets–>smallish % boycott of Saudi oil = zero effect.
Most of you know that–but it came up several times.
@PS #24: “Does your experience influence you sympathies on Arab discrimination in the US?”
In America, if an Arab is discriminated, I see it as a White system discriminating against Brown men, i.e. people like me. So Arabs and Desis fall into the same category from an American viewpoint… and quite obviously, I sympathise with the Arabs.
Just like Kesh in #26 calls Qatar ‘home’, I have mixed emotions about Saudi … I had some great times there as a kid, but that was probably only because I never had to face the trials of being in a racist workplace, or because I have otherwise never had to deal with society at all… I guess the biggest advantage of having lived in these places is that I know first hand what it is like in Muslim countries, and know how deeply ingrained in their everyday life religion is… and the value they attach to it. For instance, I was really able to understand the outcry over the Danish cartoons on Prophet Muhammad… while most of the west couldn’t really understand anything beyond ‘freedom of speech’.
Saudi is in urgent need of reform, but reform can only come from within.
This website cleary explains how France, Germany and Russia were real beneficiaries of Saddam and not US and wonder how much of jumping to war with Iraq was influenced by this. Also read this about US interests in Iraqi oil
Also what you say is what US partly did in the 80s. Remember the Iran-Iraq that raged on for a decade. Who supported the Iraqis – It was US. Where were the human right/dictatorship issues when they supported Iraq against Iran ? Why a different yardstick and different kind of stick to beat each country in the Gulf ?
The US does influence the OPEC countries pricing albeit indirectly. The major US oil companies who invest in the oil fields also influence the pricing. Syriana is an excellent movie that highlights this nexus. If human rights is such a big cause of concern for the west they should have no dealing with Saudis.
To make some extra money, I was teaching ESL at night and one of my students was a Saudi girl; She told me how she loved the indian clothes gagra cholis, etc and would where them for parties. And I have heard in other parts of the ME (don’t know about Saudi) that Bollywood is big. It would be so great if one of these bollywood stars brought attention to the plight of immigrants (many of whom are desis) in the ME.
Can’t you just see Aishwarya Rai in a public service announcement about knowing your rights as an immigrant laborer in the ME?
I say this with the most respect, but I hate Saudi Arabian culture.
And they do all this because it is home to Mecca and black gold. You cant do a damn thing to them because all of the Muslims in the world would crap their pants in anger if someone other then a Muslim stepped on foot in their “holy” land. It make’s me sick to think that my life depends on this country and its oil.
On a happy note,Saudi Arabia is on pace to break their record for most beheadings in a year.
If boycott/sanctions doesn’t have any effect they why do it with Iran ? If it works for Iran it will work with Saudi too. If invasion works with Iraq then it will work with Saudi too. Choice of method and degree of method is all but a play of self-interest rather than any human right/dictatorship issues. But obviously if you want to look yourself morally and “civiliazationally” superior in the eyes of the American public and campared to the rest of the world, yes you have to talk about such human right issues and not your capitalistic self-interests.
Kudos to Vijay Prashad in creating a “pan-brown identity” where one does not exist. From the same person I see the following comments:
that’s what i’m saying. cozy up to saddam so he’d deal directly with US companies like he did with france, etc. plus, if you got rid of the sanctions, saddam could sell more oil.
where were the human rights issues when the US aligned with the soviets in order to defeat the nazis. same logic.
I’m sorry to hear this story. A friend of mine spent part of his childhood in Kuwait- and mentioned some friction but nothing so drastic as #21, he’s from Kerela as well. #28 I can appreciate how your feelings are aware of the context,location. It never fails to ‘raise my eyebrow’ when someone who has been on the receiving end of discrimination, turns around and blindly repeats it.
Further to Kris’s comments at #29,I’m guessing It wouldn’t look to good if they clamoured in the public space, if any clamouring was done. But your point is taken. Interesting reading here from an IMF/World bank ‘watch dog’ vis a vis Iraq and our friend Paul Wolfowitz, in his former capacity
Could be that phase has ended, or it may matter who/where the parties are. I’ve read several stories not about “China’s” Mercantilism in Africa as regards natural resources, including oil–in this case it’s not going to the highest price on the world market.
Some countries, including Angola, have gone as far as specifying a fixed rate of return on investments, beyond which almost all profits go to the government. But such deals lead inevitably to rows about what counts as a legitimate expense on which a profit should be earned. Source: The Economist in a story about oil rich states not nesscarliy getting the best deal for their oil. More here
they both play in the equation. in general democracies are harshest toward those dictatorships that pose a self-interest problem, friends with dictatorships that are aligned with their interests, and do not go to war with other democracies regardless of self-interest.
Kris#32
Uhhh–you didn’t speak to my point–I didn’t say anything pro-Iran boycott or pro Iraq invasion. And drawing a sharp distinction between morality and capitalism is, shall we say, controversial at best. This poor girl is going to get her head chopped, and you want to turn it into a forum for Socialist bashing of the US….
Huh?
Actually it does matter who holds it because only a small fraction of all crude oil is bought or sold on the NYMEX or other commodity exchanges like Singapore. A lot of it is bought or sold in off-market transactions, just as larger parcels of equities are not bought or sold in market transactions.
Why would the Chinese invest billions of dollars in oil rich regions of Sudan and Africa if it wasn’t for a long term, assured and cheaper (than market) supply of crude oil. Why would ONGC, India lock up supply in oil fields in Russia if it wasn’t for cheaper than market rates.
@louiecypher #33: “From the same person I see the following comments: (1) Anyways, local Arabs hate immigrants … and especially desis . (2) In America, if an Arab is discriminated, I see it as a White system discriminating against Brown men, i.e. people like me”
.. and your point is ?
Arabs might have given us desis a hard time back when we were in their country, which is the premise for my comment (1), but in the American system, we are all ‘brown men’ who brought down their world trade centers… No matter how much we’d like to distance ourselves from the middle-east, we are all one and the same to the American system, which was the premise for (2).
Randomizer…so you choose this identity because white people can’t tell us apart? Standup against intolerance because it is wrong, not out of some imagined sympatico
Maybe Oman is better than Saudi as far as its laws for foreigners.
i suspect it is. remember that there is a lot of variation in the term “arab.” let’s not overgeneralize. though contempt for dark skinned south asians is probably normative throughout the lighter-skinned arab lands (it seems unlikely to be as much of an issue in say sudan where the “arabs” are heavily mixed with the black african population so they are at least as dark skinned as south asians) there are almost certainly quantitative variations due to issues of class, history and general cultural outlook. oman for example is dominated by a ‘heretical’ ibadi muslim regime which has a long history of international trade and cosmopolitanism. oman has an ‘indigenous’ hindu community because of international trade, and hindu temples (though only a few, http://www.jepeterson.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/Oman_Diverse_Society_Northern_Oman.pdf see page 7). this doesn’t mean that there isn’t discrimination against non-muslims, but it is a sharp difference from the salafist dominated state of saudi arabia. the saudi elite derives from the tribes of the north-central desert, and it shows in the outward makeup of saudi society. my own interactions with gulf arabs seems to be that they do have more contempt for non-muslims than muslim immigrants in rhetoric, but in practice i don’t know if matters that much. the operational enslavement of bangladeshi boys a few years back doesn’t speak to muslims treating each other with great dignity.
‘s 35 & 38:
Just bc there are some long-term contracts doesn’t mean it’s not a market. Almost all markets have long-term contracts. Those Chinese contracts are a bet–there’s someone on the other side who thinks long-term prices will be lower, no–and if you want to be a conspiracy theorist, I bet they beat the ChiComs. Sheesh, econ-101 to Desis–my mommy would cry to see this.
re: arabs in the USA, can i point out that the majority of american arabs are still christian, and that many (such as ralph nader or casey kasem) are operationally “white,” and that they are disproportionately levantine (from greater syria) and not arabs of arabian provenance. there’s a lot of apples & oranges here. of course my lebanese best friend in high school had a general racist family, but it was the racism of white ethnics, not of gulf arabs (whose racism is in large part derived from the fact that god gifted them with natural resources which result in their being able to live a life of leisure at the expense of servile castes of different cultural origin).
oman has an ‘indigenous’ hindu community because of international trade, and hindu temples (though only a few, http://www.jepeterson.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/Oman_Diverse_Society_Northern_Oman.pdf see page 7). this doesn’t mean that there isn’t discrimination against non-muslims, but it is a sharp
It’s so interesting the differences you bring up. Yes, when I went to Oman, I went to a Hindu temple there…I was very happy to see to visit a temple, where Hindus can feel a sense of community.
louiecypher, you keep perpetuating your agenda to drive a wedge between the Dravido-Lemurians and the Scythians.
Beheaded at 17 years of age. Horrifying. And how about this part of the article:
“The workers commit big crimes against Saudis,” said Suhaila Hammad of Saudi Arabia’s National Society for Human Rights.
Saudi Arabia’s National Society for Human Rights… that’s like an Onion article waiting to happen.
@40: “Randomizer…so you choose this identity because white people can’t tell us apart? “
Choose this identity ? I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a choice about the color of my skin. The Grouping of all brown folk was not brought about by desis who wanted to be associated with middle-eastern men or vice versa, but was forced upon us by the prejudices of the American system… Chances are that if an Arab is being discriminated somewhere in America, I, being brown, am very likely to face exactly the same discrimination today or tomorrow.
With respect to racial profiling, Arabs and Desis are on the same ‘side’ in America… and we are connected by skin, not by ‘choice’.
and we are connected by skin
that’s just not true. yes, arabs are swarthy, but many can pass as white (there was that variation among the 9/11 bombers, they ranged from brown to white), and if they are not dressed in muslim garb many can “pass.” south asians get lumped in with muslim arabs because there is an implicit association of “brown” or “non-white” with “alien” and “hostile” coming out of the racist subconscious (there is an ethnographic literature which suggests that the perception of americans of various nations as “white” or not depends in part on the extent to which they adhere to western norms. e.g., argentina is has a larger % of europeans in their population than the united states, but most americans perceive it as non-white because it is a “third world basket case” [more precisely it has declined from its rather secure prosperity of the early 20th century]. in contrast, there was ambivalence about whether japan was white or not in some surveys even though japanese, though light-skinned, aren’t “white.” but they are economically successful). if you are a dark skinned south asian you can shave your hair and pass as black american i suspect. the ones most screwed by the perceptions are sikhs, generally they can’t be confused as black because they are mostly punjabi, and, they dress differently, which is the main differentiator in the case of many white arabs.
p.s. the point about there being hindu temples in oman and dubai is to contrast it with saudi arabia, where public expression of a non-muslim religion (to some extent, non-sunni) is forbidden. that shows the vast gap in the arabian peninsula in regards to their culturally alien minorities. this does not mean that dubai and oman have religious neutrality as operative principles in their societies, just that the discrimination is rather mild compared to saudi arabia or even qatar (which is also salafi affiliated, though with a much softer touch from what i know).
p.p.s. there are parts of saudi arabia, such as mecca and the hijaz in general, which are much more cosmopolitan. there are large expat communities of indians, indonesians, africans, slavs, turks, chinese, etc. in that city.
Randomizer, yes you do in fact choose this when many Arabs are not “brown” and on the street, absent of other cues like culture specific clothing, would be considered white by the average man on the street. People with the “pan-brown” world view go on and on about European colonialism but somehow Islamic conquest is not regarded as colonialism…that too is a choice. Do you think the contempt that Arabs and Europeans have for Indians is fundamentally different in nature?