JEDDAH, 20 July 2005 — After spending two days in jail last week, Nour Miyati was transferred to a charity organization. Efforts at releasing her into her embassy’s custody are still ongoing.
Miyati is the Indonesian maid who accused her sponsor and his wife of torturing her and tying her up in a bathroom for a month until she developed gangrene and had to have some of her fingers and toes amputated. She was still at a hospital in Riyadh receiving treatment when she was arrested on Monday last week.
An investigative report said Miyati changed her previous statements about being tortured and was charged for making false allegations against her sponsor.
The Indonesian Embassy was surprised by the arrest because they were not informed beforehand. Labor attache M. Sukiarto tried to get her released from jail under the custody of the embassy but the police refused. He has sent a diplomatic note to the Foreign Affairs Office asking why she was arrested and to have her released in the embassy’s custody but has not received a response yet.
Meanwhile, Riyadh Governor Prince Salman heard of Miyati’s arrest and ordered her transfer to the Nahda Women’s Charity Society two days after her arrest. The Indonesian Embassy and the lawyer it hired for her, Nasser Al-Dandani, were not informed of the transfer by the police until yesterday and assumed she was in jail.
They were not able to visit her in jail or inquire about her because of the long bureaucratic procedure. First they had to apply and get permission from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which could have taken at least two weeks, and they wanted her out as soon as possible. They were worried about her condition especially that with some of her fingers and toes amputated Miyati had trouble walking and feeding herself; while she was in the hospital she was assigned a helper to assist her.
Sukiarto, Al-Dandani and other members from the embassy were finally able to visit her at the Nahda Society. “Her morale was not good. She was afraid and did not know why she was taken to jail or why she was at the Nahda Society,” said Sukiarto to Arab News. “We tried to comfort her but the poor woman was scared. She is still supposed to be held and we are trying to have her released to the embassy’s custody on bail, perhaps today, especially that she is not considered a prisoner and her condition does not allow her to be without medical attention,” he said.
Miyati continues to suffer pain and difficulty hearing from her left ear and seeing with her left eye sustained from the punches and injuries caused by the alleged beating from her sponsors.
