Earlier this year, when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman visited Pakistan, Prime Minister Imran Khan won a huge public approval when he raised the issue of thousands of Pakistanis detained in Saudi jails. The prince also promised to look into the matter. Since then, there has been no or a very little progress on this front. Side by side, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has failed to watch the interests of our people around the world, especially in Saudi Arabia. The ministry runs 114 missions across the globe. This is a big number, which involves huge money to run these missions. Nations run foreign missions to counter enemies and develop friendships with foreign powers. According to our foreign policy, Saudi Arabia is our great friend and there is a treaty of friendship between the two countries to testify it.
Despite this great friendship, Saudi Arabia shows no respect for the rights of Pakistani citizens working in Saudi Arabia. The Justice Project Pakistan and Human Rights Watch has recently released ‘Caught in a Web’, a research which documented the treatment of Pakistani prisoners by the Saudi criminal justice system. The report says trials, punctuated with rampant due process violations, have marked the executions of 66 Pakistanis, while 2,795 Pakistanis have been languishing in jails, subject to abuse and poor jail conditions.
The highest number of foreign nationals gone to the Saudi gallows has been Pakistanis. This is not the case with any other nation. In October 2015, then Indian foreign minister Sushma Swaraj reacted harshly to the ordeal of an Indian domestic worker by her Saudi employer who chopped her arm off. The Indian embassy extended her consular and legal help to pursue charges against the employer. Similarly, in 2014, Sri Lanka and Saudi Arabia reached a deal under which around 500,000 Sir Lankans working in the kingdom were entitled to protections under the labour laws. This deal was signed after a 24-year-old maid was beheaded in Saudi Arabia. Now, the Sri Lankan embassy in Saudi Arabia runs a dedicated 24/7 hotline where workers in trouble can call for help. On the contrary, many detained Pakistanis and their families are not even sure which government agency to reach out to in the hour of need.
Pakistan must work to launch a consular protection policy for the Pakistanis in the kingdom and other Gulf countries. The other possible option is negotiating a prisoner transfer agreement with Saudi Arabia, and arranging legal cells to the aid of prisoners on death row. Helping prisoners in foreign jails is never impossible.
https://dailytimes.com.pk/439328/helpless-pakistanis-in-saudi-arabia/
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