Satinah Binti Jumadi Ahmad is on death row for killing her employer in Saudi Arabia. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
‘Indonesia is begging for its citizens to escape the death penalty, meanwhile Indonesia’s firing squad executes inmates, it’s not fair,’ says brother of domestic worker saved from death penalty in Saudi Arabia
The family of an Indonesian domestic worker on death row in Saudi Arabia has criticised the perceived hypocrisy of the Indonesian government, which has paid “blood money” to save her but which refuses to countenance stopping the execution of two Australians in Bali.
In the case of Satinah Binti Jumadi Ahmad, 41 – an Indonesian domestic worker sentenced to death by beheading for robbing and murdering her employer’s wife – the Indonesian government has been lobbying hard for her life to be spared.
Last year the government, together with contributions from business, paid 7m riyal (US$1.9m) in legally recognised “blood money” requested by the victim’s family. According to sharia law in the kingdom, the family of a victim can accept this instead of an execution.
The Indonesian government also lodged a formal appeal to Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah to pardon Ahmad.
Paeri al-Feri, 44, said he was grateful the government was working so hard to save his sister, but considered the government’s actions a double standard.
“On the one hand, Indonesia is begging for its citizens to escape the death penalty, meanwhile Indonesia’s firing squad executes inmates, it’s not fair,” said al-Feri. “How can you plead for a lighter sentence or even freedom from other countries if the death penalty still exists in Indonesia?”
As Indonesia prepares to execute drug traffickers Andrew Chan, 31, and Myuran Sukumaran, 33, Indonesia’s foreign minister, Retno Marsudi, has vowed to fight for 229 Indonesian nationals on death row abroad.
The ministry has pledged that Indonesian nationals facing capital punishment overseas will be provided with full legal and consular assistance.
Al-Feri, who runs a recycling service in Semarang, Central Java, said: “Other countries might think: ‘Look at Indonesia still executing people while they ask for freedom for their own citizens.’ ”
“I think there should be a better solution.”
The Indonesian foreign ministry has defended its position, describing the use of capital punishment as within the bounds of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
“The way we see [it] is that the issue of capital punishment is still part of our law and this is still in line with the context of international law … where capital punishment can be used in the more serious of crimes,” a foreign ministry spokesperson, Armantha Nasir, told Guardian Australia.
Consecutive legal attempts to have the death penalty for Chan and Sukumaran – who were charged for their part in a plot to smuggle 8.3kg of heroin from Bali to Australia – commuted to life have failed.
In an apparent effort to appear tough on what he has described as a “drug emergency”, the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, has ignored calls from the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, the Australian government and human rights activists to cancel the executions.
Widodo has repeatedly stated there will be no clemency granted to drug offenders.
In an 11th-hour plea, the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, refused to rule out withdrawing the Indonesian ambassador to express Australia’s anger over the planned executions.
After a decade in Bali’s Kerobokan prison, official preparations are underway to transfer the two Australians to Nusakambangan island where they will be executed by firing squad alongside other criminals, including foreigners.
The date of the executions is yet to be determined but the attorney general’s office has asked they be conducted “as soon as possible”.
Under Indonesian law, Chan and Sukumaran will be given 72 hours’ notice before they are killed.
Al-Feri only recently learned of the death penalty facing the two Australians, but empathised immediately with their families.
“It breaks your heart, crying inside, constantly and desperately figuring out how to help her out. And the two [Australians] must have families, and their families must feel the same,” he said. “We should ask ourselves if we have a family member facing the death penalty, how would you feel? It’s hard.”
Ahmad left her small home town in Central Java for Saudi Arabia 12 years ago to take a job that would allow her to send more money back home. She was arrested just three months after arriving.
Ahmad has claimed she killed her employer’s wife in self-defence after sustained physical and emotional abuse.
In February last year, just months before the blood money was submitted, the Indonesian government paid for Ahmad’s only child, daughter Nur Afriana, 21, and al-Feri and his wife to travel to Saudi Arabia.
For 10 days they stayed at the embassy and were able to visit Ahmad in prison once.
“We hadn’t seen her for a long time, we cried, we talked about our families, friends, what’s going on at home,” recalled her brother. “She told Nur to take care of herself, she’s a big girl now.”
Since that visit the only contact Afriana has with her mother is via long-distance phone calls.
“She usually says to me to be brave and be patient. She says that I should not miss five times daily [Islamic] prayers and to pray for her release,” Afriana told Guardian Australia.
Afriana hoped her mother, who has not been home since she was nine years old, would one day be released from prison.
“Why is life in prison not enough?” asks Afriana. “Don’t the people who execute inmates also commit sin?”
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