Indonesia has recalled its ambassador to Saudi Arabia in response to the execution of an Indonesian maid who was convicted of murdering her Saudi employer.
The maid's beheading has sparked protests in Jakarta and calls for an explanation from Riyadh.
In the past 20 years, a total of 303 migrant workers from Indonesia have been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia.
Indonesia has managed to help only 12 of its citizens escape execution.
Al Jazeera's Syarina Hasi-buan reports from Jakarta.
So Saudi Arabia has executed 291 migrant workers yet the USA and its allies remain silent.
Knowing that migrant workers in Saudi Arabia are more often than not treated like slaves. Women who migrate from Indonesia and other countries who go to work as domestic help are often kept as virtual prisoners are physically and sexually abused by their employers and then can be severely punished for talking back or fighting back or running away.
So some of these migrant workers have possibly fought back and may have injured or in this case killed their employer. Which could be seen as self-defense or as a result of long term abuse which again could be seen as a legal defense in order to at least lessen the sentencing or just sending them back to their own country.
But as a noted previously the abuse of migrant workers including domestic servants is an ongoing problem which the government rarely takes such allegations true or not seriously. These servants are not Saudis so they are treated as if they were not worthy of respect or of having any civil or human rights .
And yet President Obama and his administration argue somewhat disingenuously that Saudi Arabia 's human rights record is greatly improved but this is obviously not true.
For instance Women are not permitted to derive, to vote , to freely go where they wish to unless accompanied by a male guardian and they must wear the full veil .
And as we have seen the Shiites are treated as second-class citizens as are other minority religious groups .
The Saudis are also guilty of destroying Shiite Mosques and sacred sites which are Shiite and those of non-Muslims. Even in Mecca and Medina the House of Saud have ordered or allowed the destruction of. sacred sites which they see as being Shiite.
In many ways the Saudis are as bad as the Taliban.
But then again Obama is following in Bush's footsteps and ignoring human rights violations in Saudi Arabia and its other allies such as Israel , Yemen, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Honduras .
Meanwhile back home in the United States Obama has been passing decrees to limit the rights and freedoms of Americans with more wiretaping, spying on the internet and is broadening the definition of giving aid and comfort to the enemy as in the case of Whistleblower Bradley Manning and going after Wikileaks and spying on progressive activists .
So Obama's record on human rights and such is rather poor. Unlike Greenwald and others I would say that the harsh techniques including longe term solitary confinement or sleep deprivation are in fact torture.
For some reason even some liberal or progressives in the US appear to accept a variation the Bush Cheney unwarranted definition of torture which restricts the definition so that many forms of physical and psychological are seen as acceptable even if this definition does not meet that of International agreements and the Geneva Conventions. For instance even putting hoods on POWs for extended periods is regarded as abuse; stripping prisoners naked and keeping them naked for extended periods or humiliating the prisoner are not permitted. The POW or other prisoners have the right to possess their Holy Book and to pray etc.
The Bush/Cheney and Obama definition of torture includes waterboarding , sodomy or harm done to the body which could cause organ failure or death.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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