Progress and backsliding
By Tisaranee Gunasekara-Thursday, 3 December 2015
Rizana Nafeek was the first Lankan woman to be executed in Saudi Arabia. She was beheaded after a questionable trial.
Now a second Lankan woman is on death row in Saudi Arabia. Convicted of ‘adultery’ she is to be stoned to death. The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration has promised to do its utmost to save her life. But this promise sounds hollow given the execrable conduct of the newly appointed Lankan envoy to Riyadh. Going by internet reports, Ambassador Thassim is quite blasé about the imminent stoning of a fellow Lankan, but is deeply concerned about the criticism of this brutal sentence in Lankan media. Such criticism, says the envoy, “can harm our relationship with Saudi Arabia”i.
By Tisaranee Gunasekara-Thursday, 3 December 2015Rizana Nafeek was the first Lankan woman to be executed in Saudi Arabia. She was beheaded after a questionable trial.
Now a second Lankan woman is on death row in Saudi Arabia. Convicted of ‘adultery’ she is to be stoned to death. The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration has promised to do its utmost to save her life. But this promise sounds hollow given the execrable conduct of the newly appointed Lankan envoy to Riyadh. Going by internet reports, Ambassador Thassim is quite blasé about the imminent stoning of a fellow Lankan, but is deeply concerned about the criticism of this brutal sentence in Lankan media. Such criticism, says the envoy, “can harm our relationship with Saudi Arabia”i.
