Abused Hong Kong maid Erwiana 'rises again'

Yahoo - AFP, Agus Purwanto, 28 September 2018

Erwiana now works on behalf of migrant workers

She was once the face of abused maids in Hong Kong -- imprisoned, starved and beaten so badly she lost control of her bodily functions.

But four years after her horrific ordeal made global headlines, Indonesian Erwiana Sulistyaningsih is a university graduate and fighting for the rights of domestic helpers in the southern Chinese city and beyond.

Erwiana completed a degree in economics this month -- the culmination of a dream that brought her to Hong Kong in 2013 before her life was turned upside down.

"Before I went to Hong Kong, I had been dreaming I could make enough money to study," the 27-year-old told AFP from her home in Indonesia's cultural capital Yogyakarta.

"After the incident, I thought I might have to give up on that dream."

Erwiana's employer Law Wan-tung was jailed after pictures of her extensive injuries went viral in 2014.

Widespread media coverage of Erwiana's torture had one unexpected benefit -- she was offered scholarships to study.

"I'm happy but it's bittersweet because even though I graduated university there are still many migrant workers who are persecuted and treated badly," she said.

She chose economics partly to understand "why so many people in this world have to migrate" for work.

"People should be able to live peacefully in their own country without having to work abroad unprotected," she said.

Erwiana plans to take that message to demonstrations outside the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Bali next month.

Erwiana's horrific ordeal made global headlines

She now works on behalf of migrant workers, including pushing for the release of former Filipina maid Mary Jane Veloso who is on death row in Indonesia for drug smuggling.

Most domestic workers in Hong Kong are from poor communities in Indonesia and the Philippines and are vulnerable to abuse by employers and employment agencies.

Migrants from both countries have also suffered injury -- or worse -- in the Middle East and other parts of the world.

In February, the death of a Filipina maid in Kuwait, whose body was found this year stuffed in a freezer, sparked outrage in the Philippines.

Also this year, Indonesian domestic helper Adelina Sau died in hospital after being rescued from her employer's house in Malaysia's Penang state, with wounds covering her body. Her boss was charged with murder.

It is these stories that prompted Erwiana to fight for workers' rights, and never give up on herself even when she doubted her chances.

"I never imagined I'd be here -- I almost gave up," she said.

"I was so sick, I was a failed migrant worker and my injuries were all over the media.

"But because my family and fellow migrant worker friends gave me strength, I finally had the spirit to rise again."

VIDEO: A former Indonesian domestic helper Erwiana Sulistyaningsih was imprisoned, starved and beaten so badly she lost control of her bodily functions. But four years later, she now fights for the rights of domestic helpers around the world https://t.co/RYY89JL6rA pic.twitter.com/kn1yXP9R6y

— AFP news agency (@AFP) September 28, 2018

Erwiana Sulistyaningsih arrives at the Wanchai Law Courts to begin giving

 evidence against her former employer who is accused of abuse and torture, in

Hong Kong on Monday. (AFP Photo/Isaac Lawrence)

Related Article:

Erwiana Tells Court of ‘Torture’ by Hong Kong Employer

Indonesian maid to return to Hong Kong to help torture probe

Jokowi to Scrap ID Card for Indonesian Migrant Workers

Malaysian Employers Puzzled by Indonesia's New Rule on Live-In Maids

Jakarta Globe, June 01, 2016

Indonesian maids relaxing on their day off in Victoria Park, Hong Kong in this
 November 2012 file photo. In the wake of President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo's
move to step up protection of Indonesian domestic workers abroad, several
 of the affected countries have been trying to resolve issues of employer
responsibilities and maid's welfare. (JG Photo/Jurnasyanto Sukarno)

Jakarta. In the wake of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's move to step up protection of Indonesian domestic workers abroad, several of the affected countries have been trying to resolve issues of employer responsibilities and maids' welfare.

Last month, Indonesia announced a ruling that will stop women from working as live-in maids in foreign countries, including Malaysia. The new ruling also requires domestic workers abroad to enter into formal contracts with their employers.

"Once the maids become formal workers, their employers will no longer have to take care of their lodgings, security and other things. They have to take care of all their expenses [themselves], and whatever happens to them has nothing to do with their employers," Malaysian Maid Employers Association president Engku Ahmad Fauzi Engku Muhsein, as reported by Malaysian news outlet Bernama on Wednesday (01/06).

He added that if the domestic help sector was formalized, the current high recruitment costs for maids must be lowered.

According to the report, the government has set recruitment costs for Indonesian maids at 7,800 ringgit ($1,800), but agents have been charging employers as high as 12,000 ringgit, with an additional annual levy of 600 ringgit and a medical examination costing 100 ringgit.

Datuk Raja Zulkepley Dahalan, president of the Malaysian National Association of Employment Agencies (Pikap), meanwhile stated that the plan would have social implications and cause more complications between the two countries.

He suggested that the government should consider only allowing 50 to 100 reliable and financially strong agencies to control the hiring process. According to him, these agencies would be able to provide housing and other services for the domestic workers.

"I understand that around 350,000 employment agencies are registered with the government, while there are another 27,000 that are unregistered. These agencies should be responsible for the welfare of the maids as they have the capacity to provide them with the maximum protection," the Pikap president told Bernama.

Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng also stated that the plan would affect the Malaysian economy, as it could force many women out of the workforce, or even result in men having to become stay-at-home dads.

"In many households, both parents work so they need live-in maids to help them. So without live-in maids, it will only force the women to leave the workforce and stay home," the minister told the Malaymail Online news outlet last month.

According to Migrant Care data, there were 6,5 million Indonesians working abroad in 2014, with 2,5 million of them employed in Malaysia mainly as maids, construction workers and laborers.

India demands Saudi ambassador to cooperate over New Delhi rape case

The Saudi ambassador has been urged to cooperate with India over allegations that one of his diplomats sexually assaulted and imprisoned two Nepali maids. Protests have broken out in India's capital over the claims.

Deutsche Welle, 10 Sep 2015

The two women, aged 30 and 50, told police that recruiting agents lured them from their homes in Nepal under the promise of higher wages. They were hired and supplied to the Saudi diplomat in April. Police rescued the women on Monday after a third maid saw their condition and informed a local NGO.

"They raped us, kept us locked up, did not give us anything to eat...When we tried to run away, we were beaten up," one of the women told to the NDTV network. She added that they had been held at the apartment near New Delhi for around four months.

The accused diplomat in the suspected rape case has since claimed diplomatic immunity and the Saudi embassy is urging India to drop the case.

According to Indian media outlets, the Saudi embassy has denied the accusations, saying it "strongly stresses that these allegations are false and have not been proven." Saudi Arabia also claims that Indian police broke international conventions by entering a diplomatic property.

India's foreign ministry "conveyed [a] request to Ambassador Saud Mohammed Alsati on Thursday, however, asking for his cooperation "in the case of two Nepali citizens," ministry spokeman Vikas Swarup said on Twitter.

Indian police also said on Wednesday that they were pushing ahead with the investigation.

MEA Chief of Protocol called in Saudi Amb today, conveyed request of Haryana Police for coopn of Embassy in the case of 2 Nepali citizens

— Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) 10 september 2015

The charges have created diplomatic tensions between the two countries ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's planned state visit to Saudi Arabia later this year. Modi will seek to secure an investment from the rich, oil state and to expand in the energy sector.

Crowds were also seeing protests outside the Saudi Arabian embassy in New Delhi on Thursday in response to allegations.

ksb, rs/kms (AP, AFP, Reuters)

Higher wages in store for foreign caregivers in Taiwan

Want China Times, CNA 2015-08-30

Foreign caregivers at a park in Taipei, March 30. (Photo/Fang Chun-che)

Foreign caregivers planning to work in Taiwan will receive a monthly wage of NT$17,000 (US$525) beginning on Sept. 1, the country's labor minister Chen Hsiung-wen announced on Friday.

That represents an increase of NT$1,160 (US$35), or 7.32%, from the current monthly wage of NT$15,840 (US$490), which has been the fixed rate for the past 18 years.

In contrast to the minimum monthly wage of NT$20,008 (US$617.34) for workers in Taiwan, which has increased 26% during the period, Chen said the 7.32% raise was reasonable.

Foreign nationals working as domestic caregivers in Taiwan are not covered under Taiwan's Labor Standards Act and therefore not entitled to the statutory minimum wage.

The higher monthly wage will only be applied, however, to new applicants from Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, and not to those already working in Taiwan.

With the monthly pay for migrant domestic helpers in Hong Kong and Macau at NT$16,530 (US$510), Taiwan hopes that the wage increase can attract quality domestic helpers to work in the country, Chen said, after a meeting with officials from the four Southeast Asian countries earlier in the day.

Indonesia and the Philippines, the two countries that provide the most migrant domestic helpers in Taiwan, have pressed Taiwan for months to increase the wages for their workers to NT$17,500 (US$540) per month, and have been holding back new workers from employers unwilling to pay that amount.

It was not immediately clear if the new wage settled the differences between Taiwan and the two countries.

But Agusdin Subiantoro, deputy director of Indonesia's National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers, told CNA on Thursday that Indonesia and Taiwan had reached the agreement to increase migrant caregivers' pay to NT$17,000 (US$525) after rounds of negotiations.

Groups of manpower brokers called for the ministry on Friday afternoon to require incoming migrant workers to have HIV/AIDS testing and pregnancy tests done.

But the Labor Ministry said that considering international human rights conventions and workplace gender equality, those tests should not be requirements for those workers.

Related Article:

Indonesia Proposes 50% Salary Hike for Migrant Maids in Malaysia

Joko to Scrap Indonesian Language Requirement for Foreign Workers

Jakarta Globe, 21 Aug 2015

A 2013 manpower ministry regulation requires foreign workers 'to be able to

 communicate in Indonesian,' but stops short of defining the level of proficiency

 the worker need to achieve in order to secure a working permit. (Antara Photo/

Dhoni Setiawan)

Jakarta. President Joko Widodo will drop a regulation that would require foreign workers to take an Indonesian language proficiency test, as part of his effort to brush up the country’s investment appeal.

The president has instructed his aides to eliminate all regulatory barriers in the central and regional administration that could hampers investment, cabinet secretary Pramono Anung said on Friday.

“It was asked specifically by the president to drop the Indonesian language proficiency requirement for foreign workers... to ensure the flow of investment,” he said.

Under a 2009 law on national language, the flag and national symbols, all locally-based businesses are required to use Indonesian as their main language of communication. The law also requires foreigners working in the country to take Indonesian language lessons.

A 2013 manpower ministry regulation requires foreign workers “to be able to communicate in Indonesian," but stops short of defining the level of proficiency they would need to achieve in order to secure working permit.

Manpower Minister Hanif Dhakiri had proposed in January to require all foreign workers to pass a standardized test for Indonesian language in order protect domestics jobs from a potential inflow of workers from neighboring countries as the Association of Southeast Asian Nation's Economic Community becomes effective next year.

The proposal met strong opposition from foreign and local investors alike, who were quick to point out that the severe lack of Indonesian study centers for foreigners would hamper their search for highly skilled workers, who they say are crucial for their businesses.

Indonesia attracted $6.8 billion of foreign direct investment outside the banking and petroleum sectors in the first half of 2015, a 18 percent rise from the same period last year, data from the Investment Coordinating Agency showed.

Investor Daily

Indonesia Regrets Beheading of Another Domestic Worker in Saudi Arabia

Jakarta Globe, Natasia Christy, Apr 17, 2015

Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi speaking to reporters about the execution of
 Indonesian national Siti Zaenab, in Saudi Arabia earlier this week. (Antara
Photo/Yudhi Mahatma)

Jakarta. The Indonesian government has expressed regret at Saudi Arabia’s decision to execute another Indonesian domestic worker on death row in the kingdom, on Thursday.

“We have done our best to ensure the judicial process was correct and that she received her rights but the victim’s family could not forgive what she did,” Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi said on Friday.

Karni Binti Medi Tarsim’s execution came only two days after the execution of another Indonesian migrant worker, Siti Zaenab, who was sentenced to death in 2001 after the 1999 murder of her employer.

Retno said the Indonesian government had done its best to request clemency for Karni, as it earlier said it did for Siti Zaenab.

Representatives of the Indonesian consulate in Jeddah met with Karni 33 times since September 2012.

Both former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and President Joko Widodo had previously sent letters of appeal for both cases, leading to the postponement of the execution.

The head of the Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI), Nusron Wahid, has traveled to Central Java to meet with Karni’s family.

Nusron told reporters he was angry that Saudi Arabia had not informed the Indonesian government prior to the execution, which according to the Foreign Affairs Ministry also did not happen ahead of Siti Zaenab’s execution.

The Indonesian itself is facing international pressure due to Joko’s decision to resume executions of convicted drug traffickers. Indonesian activists have also criticized the resumption of executions, saying the policy has undermined Indonesia’s ability to advocate for its own citizens on death row abroad.

Related Article:

‘Mentally Ill’ Indonesian Worker Beheaded in Saudi Arabia

‘Mentally Ill’ Indonesian Worker Beheaded in Saudi Arabia

Siti Zaenab binti Duhri Rupa was executed on Tuesday after being on death row for over 15 years

Jakarta Globe, Ezra Sihite, Apr 15, 2015

An Indonesian migrant worker prepared to be sent to Saudi Arabia, covers her
face during an inspection by the police in Bekasi, West Java, Indonesia, in this
 file photo taken on June 22, 2011. (EPA Photo/Mast Irham)

Jakarta. The Indonesian government, saying it has done its utmost to prevent the execution of a possibly mentally ill Indonesian woman in Saudi Arabia, regrets the fact that the decapitation went ahead on Tuesday, without her family being notified in advance.

Siti Zaenab binti Duhri Rupa was executed after being on death row for over 15 years for killing her boss, after allegedly facing abuse.

“We have done everything we can to free Siti Zaenab,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir told reporters on Tuesday.

Arrmanatha said that Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi had asked the family of the killed woman to forgive the Indonesian worker, and a press release on the ministry’s website said that President Joko Widodo as well as his predecessors Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Abdurrahman Wahid had sent letters to the Saudi king to request clemency.

In Saudi Arabia, a death sentence can be commuted if the family of the victim forgives his or her murderer.

Siti Zaenab, born in Madura in 1968, was sentenced to death in 1999.

Amnesty International said in a press release that Siti Zaenab was reported to have stabbed her employer 18 times after allegedly being mistreated by the employer’s son. She “confessed” to the act during interrogation, but reports suggest “police suspected that she suffered from mental illness at the time,” Amnesty said.

“Imposing the death penalty and executing someone with a suspected mental illness smacks of a basic lack of humanity,” Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program director, said in the press release. “This practice has been widely condemned on the world stage and Saudi Arabia should take this opportunity to reconsider its stance on the death penalty.”

Amnesty says Saudi Arabia ranks among the top five executioners in the world, having executed at least 60 people so far this year, most of them by beheading. The country carried out 90 executions last year.

“Whatever the misguided purpose behind Saudi Arabia’s shocking spike in executions so far this year, it should draw international condemnation. The Kingdom’s authorities must halt this execution spree and establish an official moratorium on the use of the death penalty,” Luther said.

Joko’s government itself has come under fire in recent months for resuming executions of drug convicts on death row, most of them foreign nationals.

Mustafa Ibrahim Al-Mubarak, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Indonesia, said there might have been a miscommunication between his government and the Indonesian embassy in Riyadh.

“They knew about the [upcoming] execution, but the Saudi Arabian government might have not reminded them of the execution date,” said Al-Mubarak. “I will check what went wrong. I will be in touch with my government to get their explanation.”

Related Article:

Jakarta Tempers Outrage at Saudi Execution, Amid Cries of Hypocrisy

Filipina maid captures dreams through photography

Yahoo - AFP, Aaron Tam, March 22, 2015

Filipino photographer Xyza Cruz Bacani poses with her work in Macau on

March 21, 2015 (AFP Photo/Aaron Tam)

Hong Kong (AFP) - From her poverty-stricken roots in a Philippine backwater, via domestic service in Hong Kong to acclaim in New York, Xyza Cruz Bacani's inspirational journey started with a camera bought with borrowed money.

The 28-year-old came to Hong Kong nine years ago to join 300,000 other women working as maids in the city, hoping to earn enough money to help fund her brother's education.

But photography has transformed her life, her images of everything from trips to the supermarket to scenes of abuse at a refuge for domestic workers earning laudatory spreads in international media and at exhibitions.

Bacani was recently named as one of the recipients of a fellowship by the Magnum Foundation, a prestigious scholarship that will allow her to study in New York for six weeks.

Filipino photographer Xyza Cruz Bacani

 poses with her work in Macau on March

21, 2015 (AFP Photo/Aaron Tam)

With that in mind, just a week ago, she quit domestic service to pursue her passion for photography. But when she first came to Hong Kong, survival was her first priority.

"The urge to survive is much bigger than the urge to do art," she told AFP in Macau where her photographs are on show as part of the city's Literary Festival.

A self-professed dreamer, she said she also saw the move to Hong Kong as an opportunity to leave her home village, nine hours' drive from the Philippine capital Manila.

"It was a big contrast when I arrived at the airport, I was very excited because everything is moving fast, and the lights are wonderful, it looks so alive compared to my village," she said.

Her passion for photography really took off four years ago, when her employer -- whom she describes as a "great lady" -- lent her the money to buy her first camera, a Nikon D90.

"When I had (the camera), I shot landscapes to flowers to (portraits of) my mom, and then I did street photography."

From that point on Bacani took photographs at every opportunity she had, whether out buying daily produce for her employer or ranging across Hong Kong on Sundays off work.

At first she only shared her pictures with friends on Facebook -- mostly shot in grainy black and white, capturing street moments in classic reportage style.

A Filipino photographer based in San Francisco saw them on Facebook and was intrigued by their originality and quality. From there she came to the attention of the New York Times Lens blog and then of acclaimed photographer Sebastiao Salgado, who praised her work at an exhibition in Hong Kong late last year.

Reflecting on her journey thus far, she marvels: "Right now it's changed my life 180 degrees, here I am having a show in Macau, going to places."

A voice for the unheard

With increasing concerns over the treatment of domestic helpers in Hong Kong and the region, Bacani is now turning to documentary photography to try to draw attention to abuses.

"That's what I want my photography to do, to be able to help people ... to me photography is a very powerful tool to change someone's perspective towards an issue," she said.

In the summer of 2014, Bacani documented migrant workers who had taken shelter at a refuge after suffering abuse at the hands of their employers, an experience she described as "life-changing".

"I was angry at first, it was a roller-coaster of emotion when I saw this kind of situation.

"I think I was there to be the voice of those domestic workers who remain unheard, whose voices have been muted."

Just last month a judge sentenced a Hong Kong woman to six years in jail for beating and starving her Indonesian maid in a case that made global headlines.

Bacani's own employer could not be more different, she says, offering support and encouragement to pursue her plans of becoming a photographer full-time.

"She said my domestic worker duties... are restricting me from growing up as a person, it's a chain that holds me," Bacani said, after stopping her domestic work last week.

Bacani's story has inspired many other helpers in the city, and she is urging them to pursue their dreams too.

"They keep on telling me... now that they've seen me, I made them realise that it's possible to do the things that you really want to do outside your job.

"I want people to see that your job, your work, it doesn't define who you are," she added.

"The dreams that I had when I was young, I'm having them now."

Indonesian Bishops, Migrant Activists Reject Death Penalty

'This is extraordinarily vicious, to make someone wait for death instead of freedom'

Jakarta Globe, Yustinus Paat,  Feb 27, 2015

Heavily armed police officers surround Myuran Sukumaran, a convicted Australian drug
trafficker, who is scheduled to be executed soon. (Antara Photo/Nyoman Budhiana)

Jakarta. The death penalty is an inhuman form of punishment and not effective in deterring crime, the Indonesian Bishops Conference (KWI) said on Friday, ahead of the pending execution of 11 drug convicts.

“Apart from moral considerations, we deem the death penalty ineffective and inhuman,” Pastor P.C. Siswantoko, the executive secretary of the KWI’s Commission for Justice and Peace, said at a discussion on Friday.

The pastor said that to tackle drug-related crime, consistency in the rule of law should be the government’s priority.

“Crime, especially the problem of drugs, will not decrease as long as law enforcers are not even-handed in carrying out their duties,” Siswantoko said.

He added that the government should also try to make the market for drugs smaller — by developing strategies to prevent youths from falling prey to substance abuse — instead of merely trying to cut supply.

The religious leader also described capital punishment as a violation of human rights that causes immense suffering and amounts to torture of the convict, citing in particular the long wait before execution.

“This is extraordinarily vicious, to make someone wait for death instead of freedom,” Siswantoko said, mentioning also the possibility of convicts becoming the subject of political maneuvers or the fatal victims of miscarriages of justice.

A total of 11 drugs convicts, including two Australian ringleaders of the so-called Bali Nine gang, are awaiting imminent death by firing squad. A date for their execution has not been publicly announced but Joko as well as other senior state officials have been adamant that the killings would go ahead despite mounting international pressure.

The Australians have been on death row since 2006. Six people, five foreigners and one Indonesian national, were already executed last month.

The pastor said the KWI had asked President Joko Widodo to reconsider his decision to proceed with the executions.

Anis Hidayah, who heads Migrant Care, said at the same discussion on Friday that her advocacy group absolutely rejects the death penalty, citing the right to live and flaws in the Indonesian legal system among the reasons for the group’s position.

She added that the president’s refusal to grant drug convicts clemency also hampered the work of her organization.

“In the years 2004-14, three Indonesian nationals have been executed abroad. Another 360 could face the death penalty and 17 among those have already been convicted,” Anis said. “If Indonesia applies the death penalty, that means negotiations with other countries [to prevent Indonesian migrant workers from being killed] will be more difficult.”

“Jokowi shouldn’t look at this purely from a legal perspective, but also value the lives of people who are set to be executed, both here and abroad.”

A Little Piece of Indonesia in Hong Kong

Jakarta Globe, Antony Sutton, Feb 15, 2015

Hong Kong’s Victoria Park has become the go-to hot spot for Indonesian
domestic workers on their one day off in the week.  (JG Photos/Antony Sutton)

There are an estimated 100,000 Indonesians living and working in Hong Kong; about 80 percent are female, with many working as domestics for local families.

Their work can be varied. For some, it is taking care of children. Others find themselves taking care of older family members who need constant supervision.

Stories like Erwiana, the maid who was beaten and tortured so severely she could hardly make it to the airplane that returned her home, are not the norm but they are the ones that make the headlines.

For many, Hong Kong is a place of work; an alien landscape with an alien language. But as is the way of expatriates the world over, Indonesians find their own way of keeping close to their roots.

Hong Kong plays host to its famous Rugby 7s tournament every year. Fans come from around the world, paint their faces, wear funny costumes and do their best to drink Wanchai dry for a few days’ festivities. The fans bring a little bit of their countries with them and identify themselves by their chants and clothes.

The Indonesian community is no different. Except they express themselves on a weekly basis. Hong Kong Island becomes a little Jakarta for a day. The famous double-decker trams are filled to overflowing with the chattering mob and their one day off the leash.

Victoria Park is the de facto center of the Indonesian community on Sundays. In the same way that English football fans are notorious for taking over town centers around the world, drinking and dancing in fountains, the Indonesians, nearly all of them women, gather in the park to catch up on the latest gossip from home with their friends.

It is certainly a sight to behold. The brave ones sit out on the grass on their makeshift mats, digging into their picnic baskets and braving the heat. Others, perhaps early arrivals, find the positions with the best shade and they too dig into their food. Amid the tai chi practitioners and joggers, vendors make their way among the small pockets, flogging further little tastes of home.

On the roads surrounding the park, other women set up stalls selling favorite dishes from the home country while still more people take up residence on footbridges for their picnics and natters.

They are everywhere: under the overpass, on the road side, under the trees. Hundreds of Indonesian women turning downtown Hong Kong in to their own turf for a few short hours. And if they run out of supplies, this being Hong Kong, the island of the entrepreneur, there is an Indonesian market of course!

For some, the day begins even earlier. It’s Sunday — a party day in Wanchai. As many drunks are winding their home from their own exertions, some of the girls are about to start their own partying and they dress to kill.

I was sat in one of the pubs fairly early on and there was already one group of girls taking over one corner of the bar, laying into the beers and food. Another group came and sat at my table as I was nursing a beer and watching a rerun of English football on one of the screens.

The girls came and joined me, calling out familiarly to the lone, harried barman, “Hello my darling,” ordering their food and drinks without a glance at the menu.

More friends would arrive (“Hello sexy lady!”) and soon the table was creaking with food, smartphones and handbags. I could hardly see the game which was just as well: my team was losing.

One girl, all legs and cleavage, ordered a soup only to return it, saying it contained pork, and ordered something else.

One of the girls was Skyping her son back in Indonesia. She would hug one of her friends asking which one he would choose for a girlfriend. It was good old-fashioned banter; the kind you find in bars around the world.

It was approaching Sunday lunch time, they were half-way through their party and they were determined to make the most of the few free hours they had to be together. It was a similar tale in other bars. One had a handful of girls and they were singing along to Abba songs while a couple of nonplussed old-timers sat by the door watching the world go by.

Apparently, things get wilder in other venues. The girls I saw were rowdy but polite and respectful, although the one who offered me some of her chips did say perhaps I was correct not to take one because “you are already fat enough!”

Monday was hours away yet early evening saw many of the girls start to make their journeys home. You couldn’t help but wonder: What would their employers think if they new what the quiet, demure child minder got up to on her day off?

Like generations of expats before them, and that could mean anyone from those hoary old sea dogs who settled in Indonesia back in the 17th century to penny pinching English teachers and high-flying oil and gas types, the Indonesian in Hong Kong seeks out the familiar in their alien environment. And far from the dulling societal norms of patriarchal home, these women cut loose in any number of ways.

Related Article:

Hong Kong woman guilty in Indonesian maid 'torture' case

Tradition meets Twitter as Saudis pledge to new king

Yahoo - AFP, Wissam Keyrouz, 27 Jan 2015

Saudi Arabia's new King Salman attends a ceremony at the Diwan royal
palace in Riyadh on January 24, 2015 (AFP)

Decades ago, Saudis trekked across their desert kingdom to pledge allegiance to their new kings at their palaces. Now they are just using Twitter.

Thousands of Saudis have poured into the palace of King Salman who acceded the throne after the death of his half-brother Abdullah last week.

Many others exercised the entrenched tradition at the palaces of provincial princes.

Saudi blogger Raef Badawi, shown
in Jeddah in 2012, was sentenced
in May 2014 to 10 years in prison,
1,000 lashes and a fine for
"insulting Islam" (AFP)

But thousands of others have pledged their allegiance to the new ruler online, taking advantage of social media networks.

Chief among them is Twitter, whose popularity has exploded with an astounding 40 percent of Saudis now using the microblogging website.

Saudi Arabia is governed by a strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law, but authorities have stopped short of banning Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, unlike in the Islamic republic of Iran.

Ultra-conservatives tweet as much as liberals in the tightly censored absolute monarchy, with clerics attracting the most followers, like Mohammed al-Arefe who has 10.8 million of them.

However several users have faced jail over their posts that have been deemed offensive to the authorities or to Islam.

King Salman himself has an account that saw its number of followers surge to 1.6 million as he became the monarch.

"I pray to God to help me serve our dear people and achieve their aspirations, and to keep our country secure and stable," read a tweet posted on the account following his accession.

A hashtag in Arabic declaring "I pledge allegiance to King Salman" spread quickly among Saudi tweeps after King Abdullah died on Friday, as users of the site mourned the late monarch.

'Progress without abandoning tradition'

"I have pledged my allegiance through Twitter because as we progress technologically, we do not abandon our identity and traditions," said Twitter user Salman al-Otaibi.

"This pledge is a duty on every Muslim," he told AFP.

Metab al-Samiri tweeted: "With full obedience, I pledge allegiance to you Salman."

The pledge is both an Islamic obligation to provide the ruler with legitimacy and a tribal commitment to obey the new leader.

Twitter has also proven to be a headache for authorities in Gulf monarchies as social media blogging sites render their censorship largely helpless.

Users calling for reforms in the kingdom have taken to the platform to voice discontent and demand concessions from the ruling family.

"We want a consultative Shura Council that is elected by the people, capable of legislating laws and holding the cabinet to account," said one tweet.

"This way, the alleged reforms could be achieved," it added, using another popular hashtag that said: "Demands for King Salman."

Despite timid steps to introduce reforms, Saudi Arabia under Abdullah remained a tightly controlled kingdom, where conservatives continue to play a strong role.

The case of blogger Raef Badawi serves as an example of the Gulf state's ever-tightening freedom of expression.

Badawi is serving a 10-year jail sentence for insulting Islam, and he has also been sentenced to 1,000 lashes, having received 50 of them in public this month.

Twitter is "the source of all evil and devastation", said the kingdom's top cleric Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh in a fatwa edict in October.

"People are rushing to it thinking it's a source of credible information but it's a source of lies and falsehood," he said.

Despite such warnings, there are no signs of Twitter's popularity waning in Saudi Arabia, whose five million users give the kingdom the world's highest penetration.

A woman's open & direct msg to Saudi authorities worth much more than her husband's words. #Michelle_Obama_NotVeiled pic.twitter.com/PV7K5imDEn
— Ali Batu Karaali (@abkaraali) January 28, 2015

THANK YOU @MichelleObama for standing up for women. Now can we also tell them that lashes & beheadings are not ok. #Michelle_Obama_NotVeiled
— Piccia (@Piccia) January 28, 2015

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Commentary: In Saudi King Eulogy, Reminder of Pardons to Indonesians on Death Row

The president must be aware that routine executions of criminals are not a characteristic of democratic countries

Jakarta Globe, Johannes Nugroho, Jan 28, 2015

A picture taken on Jan. 26, 2015 in the coastal seaport City of Jeddah shows a
 Saudi man carrying his baby to pose for a picture in front of a mural dedicated to
 late King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz with a slogan in Arabic reading: ‘Where are you
going? Look back and say hello. We didn’t get enough of you’. (AFP Photo)

In a eulogy of recently deceased King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said: “At my request, the late king pardoned many Indonesian citizens who had been sentenced to death by Saudi courts.”

His remark is a timely reminder that attempts made by any government to prevent the execution of its citizens in a foreign nation are part of routine diplomacy. And apparently neither Yudhoyono nor the Saudi government saw the request as an intrusion into Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty. By contrast, a great portion of local media has portrayed attempts made by various foreign governments to plead clemency for their citizens on death row as an outlandish attack on Indonesia’s sovereignty.

Egged on by the media frenzy over threats to our “judicial sovereignty,” most Indonesian social media users have applauded the government’s adamant stance on denying clemency to those sentenced to death in our courts. The subsequent recalls of the Dutch and Brazilian ambassadors following the execution of six drug traffickers swung the Indonesian public opinion further into the government’s camp.

As common sense gives way to emotions, many of us have evidently forgotten that we ourselves take umbrage every time we learn an Indonesian national has been sentenced to death abroad.

It is surprising that the Dutch government decided to recall its ambassador from Jakarta, considering it did not take such action when Dutch engineer Johannes van Damme was hanged for heroin smuggling in 1994 by the Singaporean government. But over 20 years have passed since van Damme’s execution, and so the sociopolitical circumstances in the Netherlands today cannot possibly be compared to those in the recent past.

We should also understand that, although Singapore is widely admired for its order-liness and world-class standards of public service, it is not perceived as a working democracy. Despite the existence of elections in the small republic, the results have always been predictable. Civil liberties are also highly regulated there, effectively making freedom of speech something arbitrated by the government.

By juxtaposition, Indonesia’s democracy — flawed as it may be — is seen as the most robust in Southeast Asia. More importantly, President Joko Widodo at first managed to generate a worldwide image as a leader with a strong commitment to democracy and human rights. Arguably, much of Joko’s image as a defender of human rights is based on hope rather than on scrutiny of his performance in office.

The international media was also guilty of promoting this perception of Joko by portraying him as a man of the people and democracy. TIME magazine, placing Joko on its front cover last October, described the new president as “the new face of Indonesian democracy” and “the world’s most modest national leader.”

So, it was no wonder that most Western governments, perhaps rather naively, assumed that he was a leader who shared their values. Seen in this context, Joko’s seemingly inhumane refusal to grant clemency to drug offenders on death row was something contrary to what people expected of him. His attitude towards capital punishment was likely formed long ago, but attracted no attention.

While wrong on human rights, the foreign media was accurate in predicting the Joko government’s insularity, which is evident not just in its indifference to, if not anger at, foreign protests over the death penalty, but also in its foreign affairs directives. But the president must be aware that routine executions of criminals are not a characteristic of democratic countries.

Though Yudhoyono may not have had the prisoners on Indonesia’s own death row in mind at the time, his praise of King Abdullah’s mercifulness is indeed a potent reminder that mercy can legitimately be shown to people condemned to death.

Moreover, if an autocracy like Saudi Arabia can show mercy, why can’t a beacon of democracy like Indonesia?

Johannes Nugroho, a writer from Surabaya, can be contacted at johannes@nonacris.com.

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