JEDDAH, 1 April 2005 — Riyadh police on Wednesday arrested Nour Miyati’s employer and are questioning him about the Indonesian maid’s claims that Fahd Naji Al-Dossary and his wife repeatedly beat her, injuring her eye and knocking several of her teeth out. According to M. Sugiarto, labor attache at the Indonesian Embassy in Riyadh, Al-Dossary’s wife was also detained but was let off after questioning.
Meanwhile, doctors at the Riyadh Medical Complex (Shumaysi Central Hospital) yesterday amputated the gangrenous fingers on both her hands. According to doctors at the hospital, amputation of her toes was temporarily put off.
In a case that has outraged and shocked Saudis and non-Saudis alike, the 25-year-old housemaid was taken to the hospital after her sponsor decided to get her medical help for the gangrene that ensued from being tightly bound during her monthlong bathroom imprisonment. Miyati, who hails from Sumbawa Island in central Indonesia, had worked for 18 months for the Al-Dossary family for a monthly salary of SR600 — money she never received.
“The first time she asked for her salary, that’s when it started,” Sugiarto told reporters yesterday. “It wasn’t only the man, the wife beat her, too.” She developed gangrene in her hands and feet after being tied up for a month in a bathroom. When the gangrene began to smell unpleasant, the family made her sleep outside the main house, Sugiarto said. “They locked her up whenever they went out,” he added.
The news of Al-Dossary’s arrest was met with a sigh of relief. “He deserves exemplary punishment for what he did to the poor woman,” said Yasin Alireza, a Saudi businessman. “This is inhuman.... He should be brought to justice,” he said.
Ghada Mamdouh, a teacher, echoed similar views. “This man and his wife should be banned from ever having people work for them,” she told Arab News. “Their punishment must be close to the crime they committed. Islam honors human beings. Their crime was a breach of Islamic teachings. He should pay her compensation and he should also be imprisoned for what he did,” she added.
“Justice delayed is justice denied,” said Umm Muhammad, a teacher at a Jeddah school. “This is a black spot on our society and we need to clean up our act... There is no room for such cases,” she said, and called for severe punishment to the “perpetrators of this crime”.
