OFW beheaded in Saudi

RIYADH – Saudi Arabia beheaded yesterday two convicts, one of them a Filipina domestic helper, as human rights watchdog Amnesty International charged that poor migrants were bearing the brunt of a surge in executions.

The Filipina maid identified by Foreign Affairs Secretary Esteban Conejos as Jenifer Bidoya was put to the sword for murder in the Red Sea city of Jeddah at 10 a.m.

Conejos said efforts of the Philippine government to save Bidoya from execution proved futile, as the victim’s family refused to forgive her.

A Saudi was executed in the north-central region of Qassim after he was found guilty of raping a boy at knifepoint, Saudi’s interior ministry said.

The executions bring to 77 the number announced by Saudi Arabia this year.

In a report released yesterday, Amnesty complained that the Saudi government “continues to execute people at an average of more than two a week.”

Almost half of them are migrant laborers from poor and developing countries, the London-based watchdog said.

“The death penalty is carried out disproportionately and discriminately on national or ethnic grounds against poor foreign workers and Saudi Arabian nationals who lack the family or other connections that, fortunately, help others to be saved from execution,” said Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa director Malcolm Smart.

Last year, a record 153 people were executed in the oil-rich Gulf kingdom, which applies a strict version of sharia, or Islamic law. This figure compared with 37 in 2006 and the previous record number of 113 executions in 2000. – Jose Rodel Clapano