Rauf Hakeem’s press release subsequent to Rizana’s execution stinks of lies!

It is utterly preposterous for Rauf Hakeem to try and absolve himself in a Press Release issued yesterday, trying to excuse himself from blame along with his erstwhile master the President in not being able to save life of Rizana Nafeek, mercilessly executed by a regime, that has double standards over morals and people’s lives. They were simply incompetent, and wholly to blame.

It was clear now for some time that the onus was on the parents of the dead infant to grant clemency. No amount of appeals to the King was going to amount to anything. It is also clear that the Sri Lankan Govt. did not succeed in getting to those two people to present their case. I believe and this is NOT twenty twenty hindsight but common sense, that not enough was done to find a way into these people. It is a delicate process, but with a concerted effort on the Government’s part and a plan it could be done.

This process involves a mixture of the payment of blood money, appeal to the conscience and religious dictats with regards to forgiveness. It should also have been in a way that they realized that they as much as Rizana were to blame for the child’s death. After all if people are human and live in SA! They are not permitted to employ a female in a house, without an accompanying male who is either the father or the brother of the worker. Clearly in Saudi society Sri Lankan maids are not human, and therefore Islamic laws do not apply to the sub-humans.

Ironically in this case the girl accused is also muslim and that did not amount to anything in this case. The fact that she was sub-human, and somehow to blame for a crime most likely not committed by her, and certainly not pre-meditated can be put squarely at the foot of Saudi society.

If we are to continue to permit people to go there as domestics, we must at the very least attempt to meet with all the major countries that supply workers to SA, and come to an agreement with the Govt. of SA as to minimum acceptable standards for guest workers, that give them basic rights, having regards to the religious practices and the Saudi interpretation of Sharia law, which for all intents and purposes is un Islamic and therefore heretical.

It is Hakeem’s duty to proclaim that the minor was killed not by Islamic Law, but by Saudi Law that bears NO relation to the religion he practices, as it prevents people being treated in the way this maid was in her whole accusation, trial, verdict, and incarceration and finally in death, a wholly barbaric sequence!