Pakistanis among 49 workers sentenced by Saudi court

Labourers accused of rioting, damaging public property

KARACHI: A number of Pakistanis were among dozens of construction workers sentenced to flogging and jail term for rioting over non-payment of salaries earlier this month, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The Saudi Criminal Court in Makkah awarded prison terms and punishment of flogging to 49 expatriate workers employed by Saudi Bin Laden Group (SBLG) after they were found guilty of rioting and damaging public property, Saudi newspaper Arab News reported.



Some of the workers were sentenced to four months in prison and 300 lashes while others were given 45 days in jail, the English-language daily reported. The nationalities of those sentenced were not given. However, a senior official at the SBLG confirmed that they included Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Indians who were involved in an expansion project at the Grand Mosque.

“The workers protested over non-payment of salaries due for the past couple of months in May, 2016” an official who lives close to the site said. Around seven buses were torched, a number of vehicles were damaged and windows of some offices were shattered in the protest. The official, who wished not be named, explained that the SBLG was facing delay in payments from the Saudi government .

Some of the projects under way for the expansion of the Grand Mosque have been halted after the SBLG stopped receiving payments from the Saudi government.

“Expansion work has been stopped. But this news has not been leaked because the government doesn’t want so,” an official said.

Recently, more than 170 workers with the Empower Contracting, part of SBLG, in Riyadh submitted their resignation en masse over non-payment of salaries. They have gone on strike till their dues are cleared.

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A worker at the company said that he hadn’t been paid for the past eight months and his family in Pakistan was going through hard times. He complained that due to the strict laws in the country, the workers could not even assemble in considerable numbers to record their protest. “We would be put behind bars.”

Moin Ahmed Khan, a construction worker from Dera Ghazi Khan, who recently returned to the country after spending six years in Saudi Arabia, recalled that his employer still owed him Rs500,000.

The National Trade Union Federation deputy general secretary Nasir Mansoor has demanded that the government intervene and rescue its citizens from the conditions they have been living in.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 9^th, 2017.