JEDDAH, 22 July 2005 — The judge at a Riyadh court approved releasing Nour Miyati into the custody of her embassy with the personal guarantee of her lawyer.
Last week Miyati was taken suddenly and with no explanation from the hospital, where she was receiving treatment, to the women’s public jail. Two days later she was transferred to the Nahda Women’s Charity Society on the orders of Riyadh Governor Prince Salman.
The Indonesian Embassy and the lawyer it hired, Nasser Al-Dandani, to follow up on the alleged physical abuse and torture Miyati suffered at the hands of her sponsor, were not informed of her arrest or of her transfer. For a whole week they tried to release her from jail and were finally informed by the police on Tuesday that she had been transferred; they went to visit her at the Nahda Society.
“The judge agreed to release her under my personal guarantee. Once the papers are processed we should be able to release her on Saturday (tomorrow) from the Nahda Society,” said Al-Dandani to Arab News. The police had earlier refused to release Miyati under the guarantee of the embassy. The embassy then sent a diplomatic note to the Foreign Office inquiring about the reason for arresting Miyati and to have her released in their custody, but it has not yet received a response.
Miyati was at the Specialist Hospital in Riyadh receiving treatment for the injuries she suffered including gangrene that resulted in the amputation of some of her fingers and toes. She accused her sponsor and his wife of torturing her and tying her in the bathroom for a month but an investigation report said that Miyati changed her previous statements about being tortured and tied and was charged for making false allegations against her sponsor.
“Of course when she came to us her morale was low. Her fingers and some of her toes were amputated thus she couldn’t take care of herself and is barely able to walk. She seemed to have improved after her stay at the hospital and with the treatment she was getting, but she was still suffering from hearing-loss and bruised left eye as well as a broken front tooth,” said Hind Al-Ismaili, the social worker at Nahda Society.
“We comforted her and took care of her and she began to feel even better when members from her embassy visited her on Tuesday. We will be handing her over to the embassy tomorrow through the police,” she told Arab News.
The Nahda Society provides shelter to abused Saudi women who are transferred to them through the police. “We have three Saudi women now who either ran away from their father or husband. One of them has been with us for over a year and that is unusual because we try to solve the problems these women have with their family members as much as possible or find an alternative solution for them if they refuse to go back,” said Al-Ismaili.
