Govt urged to act to save death-row worker

Government’s diplomacy has been put to the test following calls for intervention in the Satinah death row case.

Satinah, a migrant worker from West Ungaran, Semarang regency, Central Java, is reportedly scheduled to face beheading for the alleged murder of her employer in Saudi Arabia.

The conviction was handed down in 2007, but her family had only heard about the sentence in March 2011.

It was reported that the employer’s heirs later agreed to pardon Satinah but demanded SAR 10 million or equal to some Rp 25 billion from the convict’s family as compensation — also known as blood money.

Legal Resource Center for Gender Justice and Human Rights (LRC KJ-HAM), an NGO which has been counseling Satinah’s family in cooperation with Migrant Care Jakarta, however, said that there was no way that her family would be able to pay for the diyat.

“They are just an ordinary farming family. They cannot afford to pay,” LRC KJ-HAM director Fatkhurozi recently said.

He said it is therefore the government that must look for a way to pay for the demands as a part of its responsibility of saving the rights of its citizens living in another country.

“Besides, Satinah left for Saudi Arabia legally.”

Satinah, 39, a mother of one, left for Saudi Arabia in 2003 as a migrant worker through recruitment agency (PJTKI) PT Djamin Harapan Abadi, which is based in Jakarta.

Fatkhurozi also said that LRC KJ-HAM had sent a letter to Central Java Governor Bibit Waluyo regarding the matter.

He said, however, that in his opinion it was deplorable that the provincial administration had only passively sent the same letter to the Manpower Ministry and Foreign Affairs Ministry.

He expressed confidence that the administration actually was capable of playing a more significant role, especially in paying for the blood money and urging the central government to deal with the
problem.

“It seems that the provincial administration is washing its hands while one of its citizens is facing a death sentence. It is not a matter of being capable or not, but of having the will,” Fatkhurozi said.

He also expressed concern that even information about the whereabouts of Satinah was not presently clear.

Chairman of the Center for Indonesian Migrant Worker Service, Placement and Protection (BP3TKI) Semarang, AB Rahman, expressed hope that all related parties would be able to cooperate and share information about the migrant worker.

“If the information is clear, together we can solve the problem more quickly. We will do our best,” he said.

Data at the Central Java BP3TKI shows that from Jan. 1, 2009 to June 13, 2011 there were 18,482 migrant workers from the province working in Saudi Arabia. Of them, 15,089 worked in informal sectors and 3,393 in the formal sector.

Provincial Manpower Agency head Edison Ambarura refused to comment on Satinah’s affairs when contacted by The Jakarta Post by phone. “We will hold a press conference. We will give our statements there,” he said.

Satinah is not the only Indonesian facing Saudi Arabia’s death row.

Tuti Tursilawati of Majalengka, West Java, was reported to have been sentenced to death by a Saudi court, also for allegedly murdering her employer.

A hearing at the House of Representatives in October last year disclosed the two were among six domestic workers facing the same sentence.

The government-sanctioned Migrant Workers Protection task force recently reported that as many as 67 Indonesian migrant workers, 37 of whom worked in Saudi Arabia, avoided death row after either being pardoned or having their penalties commuted to jail terms.