Indonesia once intervened to save maid from execution in Saudi Arabia

The Indonesian government, currently under international pressure to spare eight foreigners, including a Filipino, from the death sentence, is no stranger to making appeals on behalf of a citizen facing execution overseas.

Last year, Indonesian officials found themselves scrambling to save the life of Satinah Binti Jumadi Ahmad, an Indonesian maid sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for killing and robbing her Saudi Arabian employer.

According to a report on CNN, Ahmad was sentenced to death in 2011 after she reportedly admitted to killing her 70-year-old female employer and stealing approximately $10,000, allegedly in self defense.

The same report said the execution was initially scheduled for August 2011 but was postponed five times due to the intervention of the Indonesian government.

But in April 2014, the execution was set aside altogether, after the Indonesian government announced that it would pay the seven million Saudi riyals ($1.8 million) asked for by the family of Ahmad’s employers as blood money.

Mary Jane Veloso

Now, Indonesia is set to execute by firing squad on Tuesday eight foreigners convicted for drug-related charges. One of them is Mary Jane Velosos, a 30-year-old mother of two who said she was duped into serving as a drug mule by her recruiter.

Veloso was arrested after authorities found 2.6 kilograms of heroin sewn into her suitcase at the Yogyakarta Airport in 2010. She has maintained that she did not know that there were drugs in her luggage.

Double standard?

Indonesia's supposed double standard has been criticized by the group Human Rights Watch (HRW.)

“The Indonesian government’s pursuit of clemency for Ahmad in Saudi Arabia while ignoring its own continued use of the death penalty is more than just about hypocrisy on the right to life. It’s an expression of recently elected President Joko Widodo’s avowed support for  the death penalty as an ‘important shock therapy’ for drug law violators,” said an article by Phelim Kine, HRW's deputy director.

Kine also noted the disconnect between Widodo’s continued denial of clemency for those on death row in his country and the scramble to save the life of an Indonesian in a similar situation.

“Widodo denied [several] petitions for clemency on the basis that drug traffickers on death row had ‘destroyed the future of the nation.’ [But] international human rights law limits use of the death penalty to only 'the most serious crimes,' typically crimes resulting in death or grievous bodily harm,” he said.
 
Kine also criticized Indonesia’s hard line stance on implementing the death penalty for drug-related offenses, saying the United Nations Human Rights Committee does not recommend the execution in these cases.

“The United Nations Human Rights Committee and the UN expert on unlawful killings have condemned using the death penalty in drug cases, and the UN high commissioner for human rights and the director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime have likewise expressed grave concerns about the application of the death penalty for drug offenses. All this makes Indonesia’s application of the death penalty for drug-related convictions particularly odious,” he said.  —Patricia Denise Chiu/KBK, GMA News