Members of the Sant’Egidio Community in Jakarta yesterday handed out flowers and pins in a protest against the death penalty.

More than 25 of the community’s members staged the protest in the city centre against state executions in the wake of the death of an Indonesian migrant worker in Saudi Arabia in June.

“This campaign aims to invite people to reject the death penalty since it is against human rights,” said Eveline Winarko, coordinator of the community in the city.

The community worked together with the Indonesian Conference on Religion and Peace and the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence.

In mid-June Ruyati, an Indonesian migrant worker, was executed in the western province of Mecca after being found guilty of killing her employer’s wife with a machete. Some 218 Indonesians working in China, Saudi Arabia and Singapore are facing the death penalty because of various cases, according to data from the Migrant Institute.