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Saudi authorities round up Shiites in spy row

Abu Dhabi: Saudi authorities have called in several influential Shiite Muslim clerics and intellectuals for questioning, as last month’s arrest of 16 people on charges of spying for Iran threatens to raise tensions between leaders of the religious minority and the government in the oil-rich kingdom.

Over the past days and weeks, the interior ministry has summoned scores of clerics and intellectuals from the towns of Ihsaa and Qatif in the oil-producing Eastern Province for interrogation, Saudi activists say.

The trigger for the summons was the Shiite community’s angry reaction to last month’s arrest of 16 Saudi Shiites, who are accused of providing information and documents to Iran, allegations that Iran denies.

Their arrest had prompted a wave of anti-Shiite rhetoric in the state media. Leading Shiite thinkers had then published statements questioning the timing and motive for their detention. Some suggested the arrests and the accusations of espionage had been designed to distract a population eager for reform.

Sri Lankan maid Rizana Nafeek beheaded in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has beheaded a Sri Lankan domestic worker for killing a baby in her care in 2005 in a case that has been widely condemned by rights groups.

The maid, Rizana Nafeek, had denied killing the four-month-old boy.
Her supporters say she was only 17 at the time of the killing. They say her execution is a breach of international child rights.
The Sri Lankan government condemned the execution, which it said took place despite numerous clemency pleas.
The Saudi interior ministry said on Wednesday that Ms Nafeek was executed for smothering the infant after an argument with the child's mother in the town of al-Dwadmi.
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The Sri Lankan parliament held a minute's silence on Wednesday in honour of Ms Nafeek.
News of the execution came on the same day that the International Labour Organization (ILO) said that laws were needed "urgently" to give greater protection to domestic workers.
The ILO Report estimates that only about 10% of all domestic workers - about 5.3 million people - are covered by labour laws to the same degree as other workers.

In Sri Lanka itself, the execution has rekindled debate about the safety of expatriate workers in the Middle East and about the poverty which drives people including Ms Nafeek to seek work abroad.
In a statement, the Sri Lankan foreign ministry said that President Rajapakse and the government deplored the execution "despite all efforts at the highest level of the government and the outcry of the people locally and internationally".


A Sri Lankan opposition MP who campaigns for Sri Lankan workers abroad, Ranjan Ramanayake, described the Saudi government as "dictators" who would never execute Europeans or Americans, only Asians and Africans.
The MP also said the government in Colombo had done little to ensure Rizana Nafeek's legal rights - a claim denied by Sri Lankan government officials.
The parents of Ms Nafeek had repeatedly appealed to King Abdullah to pardon her. Her father is currently in hospital, officials say, and her mother is too distressed to talk about the execution.