Sri Lanka appeals to Saudi Arabia to overturn migrant worker’s death penalty

Sri Lanka is preparing to petition Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court to overturn a recent Court of Appeal ruling sentencing a migrant worker to death.

“We are working on an appeal and are hoping to file it today or tomorrow at the Supreme Court,” President’s Counsel Upul Kumarapperuma told The Hindu from Riyadh on Friday (October 9, 2026). He is part of a team of senior lawyers and officials from the public prosecutor’s office sent by the Sri Lankan government to Saudi Arabia.

The case, which has brought concerns about freedom of expression, migrant workers’ precarity, and the death penalty to the fore, stems from a social media comment posted in late June this year by Sivarasa Anojan, an engineer in his mid-twenties, employed in Saudi Arabia.

It was around the annual pilgrimage to Kataragama or the Kathirgamam temple in southern Sri Lanka, which draws scores of Hindu and Buddhist devotees. According to local media reports, a Muslim man from Kalmunai, located in the island’s eastern Ampara district, was filmed attacking a dog — named Subramani, the temple’s presiding deity — which had followed Kataragama pilgrims for hundreds of kilometres. The man, who was arrested on charges of animal cruelty, was subsequently granted bail but the video meanwhile went viral on social media, provoking shrill comments from Tamils and Muslims.

The two Tamil-speaking communities, living across Sri Lanka’s north and east have a complex, and at times tense, relationship, owing to their respective political histories during and after the civil war.

Anojan too had weighed in with a comment referring to Prophet Muhammed. Although it was swiftly deleted and Anojan posted an apology, Saudi courts deemed it blasphemous, sentencing him to five year’s imprisonment at first, and later increasing the punishment to death.

Amid recent reports of attacks on Anojan by fellow inmates, Sri Lankan Embassy officials in Saudi Arabia visited him earlier this week and found him to be “doing alright in prison”, according to official sources.

“The government is taking every possible step, in accordance with the Saudi law, to seek relief for Mr. Anojan and for the commutation of his death sentence,” Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath told Parliament on Wednesday (October 7).

Political parties across the divide in Sri Lanka — both political and ethnic — have come together in their appeal to Saudi Arabia to pardon Anojan. Religious leaders, media forums, and civil society networks have also written to Saudi authorities, seeking clemency for him. Some politicians have also suggested that the Sri Lankan government request Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assistance to reach out to the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince.

On September 21, 2026, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake met members of Anojan’s family, and assured them that the government will pursue “every possible legal and diplomatic channel” to take up his case.

Earlier this week, rights watchdog Amnesty International urged Saudi Arabia’s authorities to “urgently overturn the death sentence” issued against Anojan. In a statement, Amnesty called upon Saudi authorities “to release him immediately and unconditionally given his charges stem entirely from his exercise of his right to freedom of expression.”

According to the statement, Saudi Arabia remains one of the world’s leading executioners. “As of 5 October 2026, at least 175 people had been executed in Saudi Arabia this year, including many for drug-related offences. Foreign nationals account for a majority of those executed, with at least 94 foreign nationals from more than 20 countries put to death this year alone,” it further said.

In Sri Lanka, calls for the abolition of the death penalty have continued, albeit sporadically. The punishment remains on the books, but the country has not carried out an execution in 50 years.