Parliamentarians said the Kingdom and other Gulf states should not benefit from cheap Indonesian labor until they agreed to protect workers’ basic rights.
“We have asked the government to temporarily suspend sending Indonesian workers overseas, especially countries which refuse to sign an agreement which protects our workers' rights,” Deputy Speaker Priyo Budi Santoso said.
Several lawmakers called on Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa and other key members of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Cabinet to resign over the treatment of migrant workers abroad.
The uproar came after Riyadh beheaded an Indonesian maid on Saturday for murdering her Saudi employer.
Ruyati binti Sapubi had been convicted of murdering Khairiya bint Hamid Mijlid with a meat cleaver after being denied permission to leave the Kingdom, according to Indonesian officials.
Indonesia recalled its ambassador to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday in protest over the execution, an Indonesian Embassy official in Riyadh said.
"The Indonesian ambassador will return to Indonesia today because the government is really upset with the beheading and sees it as an unfair decision," the official told Reuters.
"He might return at some point but we are still not sure. We just want the Saudi government to hold talks with us before they take a decision to execute a national," he added.
The embassy had not been advised beforehand that the execution was to take place, the official said.
In Jakarta, Teuku Faizasyah, the presidential spokesman for international affairs confirmed the ambassador's recall “for consultations” and said Indonesia had summoned the Saudi envoy to express its “disappointment and deep regret” over the execution.
Another 23 Indonesian migrant workers are on death row in Saudi Arabia, according to parliamentary labor commission member Rieke Dyah Pitaloka.
“The suspension (of migrant labor to the Middle East) must be applied soon, especially to Saudi Arabia,” she said.
Dozens of protesters including Sapubi's daughter protested outside the Saudi Embassy in Jakarta to condemn the execution. Around 70 percent of the 1.2 million Indonesians working in Saudi Arabia are domestic helpers, according to officials. Sapubi's case is the latest in a string of incidents involving Indonesian menial laborers in the Middle East. There are about 1.2 million Indonesian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia and 2.2 million workers in Malaysia — two of the top country destination for the Southeast Asian country.
