A wave of anxiety has swept across Sri Lanka as 24-year-old migrant worker Anojan Sivarasa awaits a potential execution in Saudi Arabia, convicted of blasphemy against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad over a social media comment. His mother, Rasamanickam Yogalakshmi, issued a tearful, desperate appeal to authorities this week, begging for mercy for her eldest son. “I plead for mercy for the wrongs committed by my son. Please forgive him and send him back to us,” she said, as the family has now gone more than a week with no contact from Anojan.
The origins of the case stretch back to a heated religious dispute on Sri Lankan social media in late June. Footage of a young Muslim man kicking a dog accompanying Hindu pilgrims went viral, sparking tense cross-religious arguments online. After another user made derogatory comments about a Hindu deity, Anojan responded in Tamil with an insult targeting the Prophet Muhammad. Though he quickly deleted the comment and released a public apology video, opponents captured the post in screenshots and shared it with Saudi authorities, where Anojan had been working as a migrant laborer.
Anojan’s brother, Hamsidan Sivarasa, told BBC Sinhala that the case did not originate in Saudi Arabia at all. “People in Saudi Arabia knew nothing about this matter. It was individuals in Sri Lanka who sent emails to the company where my brother worked. I do not even wish to mention who those people are,” he said. Anojan’s employer subsequently notified Saudi officials, leading to his arrest in July. Authorities seized all of his personal electronic devices and deleted his social media accounts.
Initially, the Al-Ahsa Criminal Court sentenced Anojan to five years in prison and a fine of 3 million Saudi riyals (approximately $800,000 USD). When prosecutors launched a surprise appeal on September 17, however, the appellate court agreed to reclassify the case under Sharia law instead of Saudi Arabia’s existing cybercrime statutes. The ruling revised his sentence to death, an outcome that has shocked communities across Sri Lanka.
Since the verdict was handed down, cross-sector and cross-religious support for Anojan has quickly mobilized. Sri Lanka’s President Anura Kumara Dissanayake met with the worker’s family at the Presidential Secretariat on September 21, giving a formal assurance that the government would leave no diplomatic avenue unused to secure a full pardon. Multiple political parties and state agencies have coordinated diplomatic outreach to Saudi officials to plead for clemency, and senior Buddhist and Hindu religious leaders across the country submitted an official memorandum to the presidency calling for urgent government intervention. This week, a four-member legal delegation from Sri Lanka is traveling to Saudi Arabia to meet with Anojan’s two local defense attorneys to coordinate next steps in the legal battle. “We are going there to meet the lawyers from these two firms, discuss the case and plan what can be done next,” delegation member and Member of Parliament Upul Kumarapperuma told BBC Sinhala.
Despite these efforts, Anojan’s family has received no updates on his status or location since September 28, and Sri Lankan officials have instructed the family to avoid public comments while diplomatic efforts are ongoing. Saudi authorities have not released any public timeline for the execution, a fact that has deepened the family’s anxiety. Human rights advocates note that Saudi Arabia has a well-documented pattern of carrying out executions without prior warning to the condemned person’s family or home country government, only notifying relatives after the sentence is completed. Under Saudi prison protocol, death row inmates are typically stripped of access to personal mobile devices, with all external communication strictly controlled by prison administration.
The case has reignited longstanding international concerns over the treatment of migrant workers and harsh sentencing for online speech in Saudi Arabia. The International Organization for Migration estimates that more than 10 million foreign workers reside in Saudi Arabia, and rights groups consistently highlight that low-wage migrant laborers face disproportionate vulnerability in the kingdom’s legal system due to systemic barriers including language gaps and limited access to qualified legal representation.
This is not the first high-profile case of a death sentence handed down for social media commentary in Saudi Arabia. In 2023, retired Saudi schoolteacher Mohammed Al Ghamdi was sentenced to death for opinions he shared on two anonymous Twitter accounts that had just 10 total followers. “The death sentence against Mohammad bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, who is accused of nothing other than expressing his opinions on social media, is ludicrous,” Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said at the time. Al Ghamdi’s death sentence was eventually overturned and replaced with a 30-year prison term, per data from independent Saudi human rights organization ALQST. While executions for blasphemy remain far less common than executions for drug offenses or murder in Saudi Arabia, rights advocates warn the case against Anojan highlights the ongoing risks facing foreign workers who inadvertently run afoul of the kingdom’s strict religious speech laws.