The outrage was splendid, eloquent, and genuine. For once, the editorials did not shy away from using the word “human rights’. Letters to editors waxed indignant, calling attention to the fact that much of the world, India included, had moved away from degenerative notions of crime and punishment. And only those with a perverse sense of what constitutes justice would have approved of the news of an Indian man in Saudi Arabia facing the ‘punishment’ of having his eye gouged out. Saudi Arabia, one newspaper commented, “remains firmly in the quagmire of medievalism”. 

And then, the amnesia.

Less than a month after many Indians had received their first crash course on the Saudi Arabian justice system, came the news that the ruler of the aforesaid “quagmire of medievalism” was to be an honoured guest at India’s Republic Day celebrations in January 2006. It is incredible that no newspaper, no commentator – and certainly nobody in the otherwise voluble opposition parties – noted the irony and questioned the choice of guest. Surely, memories cannot be so short.  

The Indian government has appealed to King Abdullah for clemency for Mr. Puthan Veettil Naushad and it is possible that His Majesty will grant a pardon if only to thank his hosts for the honour. But surely the mandarins at India’s Ministry of External Affairs realise that there will be other Naushads – there are many others facing the kingdom’s “medieval” notions of punishment and justice – and India cannot invite the king to the Republic Day party every year. 

Ongoing concerns 

Mr. Naushad’s case is not the only example of Saudi Arabia’s inhuman treatment of migrant workers.  

In 2004, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants received information regarding the case of Mahsar Ali Ansari, 28, from Saidabad village, Allahabad. His father had sold his land and borrowed money from his relatives to buy a visa from a recruitment agency in Mumbai which placed Mahsar Al Ansari with a private employer in Saudi Arabia. On 15 July 2004, Mr. Ali Ansari left his village to work in Nasan, Saudi Arabia. Once in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Al Ansari called his family to tell them that his employer routinely ill-treated him, subjecting him to beatings several times a day. 

On 9 September 2004, Mr. Al Ansari’s father received a telephone call informing him that his son had been killed and that the body was at King Khaled General Hospital in Saudi Arabia. He later received a copy of a death certificate which put the cause of death as asphyxiation and noted that there were rope marks around the neck. No other information was received regarding the status of the investigation into Mahsar Al Ansari’s death. The family was reportedly unable to bring the body to India for burial owing to lack of resources. 

About 60 percent of Saudi Arabia’s workforce consists of migrant workers, mainly from Asia, Africa and other countries in the Middle East. Human rights monitoring bodies – of the United Nations as well as organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – have consistently reported human rights violations against migrant workers. In a 2004 report, Human Rights Watch recorded the individual testimonies of migrant workers and their families and found that they had experienced “shocking treatment” in the kingdom’s criminal justice system. Migrants have been sentenced to death without fair trials, and according to Human Rights Watch, an undetermined number of foreigners are awaiting execution. Details of the trials, the rights watchdog adds, are treated as state secrets and not made available. 

In 2003, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed concern about allegations of “substantial prejudice against migrant workers, in particular those coming from Asia and Africa”. It also noted allegations of “a disproportionate number of foreigners” facing the death penalty and pointed out that Saudi Arabia had not responded to requests by the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions for information on several cases of migrant workers who had not received legal assistance and had been sentenced to death. 

Infamous for the lack of transparency of its legal procedure, the Saudi justice system provides no protection or justice whatsoever for Asian migrant workers. A fact-finding mission in October 2002 undertaken by the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers revealed the Saudi judiciary to be viscerally hostile to the involvement of lawyers in the administration of justice; furthermore, it was found that there is no deep-rooted culture of legal representation in the court system. Proceedings are held in secrecy, and defendants have no legal right to interpreters, or access to consular officials during interrogation or trial, nor do they have the right to call or examine witnesses. Judgments can be based solely on “confessions” “signed” during interrogation, a practice known to support the employment of prolonged incommunicado detention and physical and psychological pressure to acquire the desired confession.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants also reported that she had received information about a number of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia complaining of exploitative working conditions, sexual violence, and human rights abuses in the criminal justice system. Government oversight of the application of Saudi labour law is inadequate, her report stated, adding that non-compliance by employers with the law is frequent. The report further adds: 

Numerous migrant workers who come into contact with Saudi Arabia’s criminal justice system, their families, and consular officials of concerned countries have complained of the extreme lack of transparency of the country’s criminal procedures. It is alleged that the authorities often refuse to provide minimal information on arrests, that consular officials are in numerous cases denied adequate access to their nationals, and that the Government frequently reveals little about the legal proceedings, including evidence to support charges. It is further alleged that a number of migrant workers arrested under suspicion of having committed a criminal offence have testified to being held incommunicado, subjected to torture and being forced to sign confessions in Arabic, a language most did not understand. Certain migrant workers faced with capital punishment are reported to have been apparently unaware that they had been convicted until the moment of their execution. It is further reported that in several cases migrant workers were beheaded without the knowledge of their embassies or relatives who were only informed after the fact, sometimes many months afterwards. The remains of those executed are allegedly generally not returned to their families for burial. 

The website of the Indian embassy in Riyadh lists a range of services offered by the embassy to Indian workers in Saudi Arabia. However, as reported above, Saudi government officials do not provide adequate or timely information about arrested or detained Indian nationals. An Indian diplomat was quoted as saying in 2003 that diplomats were unable to “directly approach the police or the courts to obtain details” about Indians in detention.  

Human Rights Features has emphasised elsewhere that the Saudi authorities and the migrant workers sending governments must act in unison to protect migrant workers from the systematic abuse of their fundamental rights. It appears that the sending governments will only act when the remittances from their workers abroad cease, and they feel the pinch financially. This is unacceptable. Migrant workers in Saudi Arabia live in inhuman circumstances, which will not change, unless the sending governments adopt a proactive approach.  

A step in this direction would be the signature and ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Families, by both migrant sending and receiving countries. However, neither have sending countries like India and Bangladesh ratified the Convention nor, unsurprisingly, has Saudi Arabia. 

Is the issue of migrant workers on the agenda when King Abdullah visits? Unlikely. If the rights of migrant workers in countries like Saudi Arabia are of any concern to India, His Majesty ought not to be given pride of place but should instead be asked to answer some pressing questions. Saudi Arabia’s economy relies heavily on its foreign workforce. The least it can do is guarantee the fundamental rights of migrant workers. And that is the message New Delhi should be sending Riyadh, not a gilt-edged invitation.

 Human Rights Features