"Australian faces lashes and jail term for blasphemy in Saudi Arabia"
The above news has drawn my attention. Mansor Almaribe, a 45-year-old Australian, has been sentenced to 500 lashes and a year in prison after being convicted of blasphemy by judges in Saudi Arabia. Mansor went to the country for a pilgrimage to Mecca. It is reported that the judge initially handed down a sentence of two years in jail and 500 lashes, but later reduced the jail term to one year. Officials in Canberra said they had been in touch with the Saudi authorities to request leniency. Now it is time to watch and see the outcome of the request.
However, the purpose of my writing this letter is to draw the attention of the readers and the authorities in Bangladesh regarding the fate of six Bangladeshi workers who were beheaded in public in Riyadh in October this year (on a Friday) after they were found guilty of killing an Egyptian in 2007.
The total number of executions in the country this year is 58 so far and they are mostly migrant workers from developing countries. Most importantly, many of the foreign workers don't understand Saudi court proceedings in Arabic and they rarely get lawyers to represent their cases.
Mansor is an Australian citizen and by his name I presume that he is not a white person who gets high respect in Arab countries. Workers from the third world countries are often called 'Miskin' there and treated very inhumanly and their salaries are very low and not regularly paid.
Now, I would tell my country people to follow Mansor's fate and see how the Saudi authorities deal with this case.
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