A 24-year-old Sri Lankan migrant worker named Anojan Sivarasa now faces execution in Saudi Arabia for a Facebook comment he deleted within hours and publicly apologized for — a remark made in the heat of a religious dispute that crossed borders through a screenshot. What began as the ordinary friction of online argument has become a collision between digital impermanence and the permanence of law, between a young man's remorse and a legal system that moved toward its harshest conclusion. His family has not heard his voice since September 28, and the silence that surrounds him is the silence th
Sri Lanka fights to save migrant worker facing Saudi death penalty for Facebook post
Anojan Sivarasa faces execution; his family has lost all contact with him since September 28 and faces uncertainty about his fate and potential imminent death.
He deleted the comment and apologized. It was not enough.
Mark
So he made a comment on Facebook during an argument about religion, deleted it, apologized—and now he's facing execution. How does that happen?
Mimi
It was a screenshot. Someone took a screenshot of the deleted comment and sent it to his employer in Saudi Arabia. The employer reported it to authorities. Once it reached the government, the legal machinery moved very quickly.
Luke
But we should be clear: we don't know who sent that screenshot. His brother says it was people in Sri Lanka, but he won't name them. That's a significant gap in the story.
Mark
Why did the prosecutors suddenly push for Sharia law instead of cybercrime charges? That seems like a deliberate escalation.
Mimi
The source doesn't explain their reasoning. We know it happened on September 17, and it changed everything—from five years in prison to death. But the prosecutors' motivation isn't documented here.
Luke
Right. And that matters because it suggests there may be factors we're not seeing. Was it political? Religious? A standard practice? We don't know.
Mark
His family hasn't heard from him in over a week. Is that normal?
Mimi
In Saudi prisons, death row inmates typically lose phone access. Calls are controlled by authorities. But the family did notify the embassy and asked them to check on him. They're still waiting for a response.
Luke
So we have a family in the dark, an embassy that hasn't responded, and a government that's told the family to stop talking publicly. That's a lot of silence around one person.
Mark
What's the precedent here? Has this happened before?
Mimi
There was a case in 2023—a retired teacher named Mohammed Al Ghamdi, sentenced to death for social media comments. But his sentence was overturned and reduced to 30 years.
Luke
One precedent. And it went the other way. We don't know if that helps Anojan or not.
El Pulso
- A single screenshot, taken after Anojan deleted his comment and apologized, was sent to his Saudi employer — transforming a moment of online anger into a criminal case that would escalate beyond anyone's initial reckoning.
- Saudi prosecutors rejected the original five-year sentence as insufficient and successfully appealed for Sharia law to apply instead of cybercrime legislation, converting a prison term into a death sentence.
- Since September 28, Anojan has had no contact with his family — a silence that carries particular dread given Saudi Arabia's documented practice of carrying out executions without notifying families or embassies in advance.
- His mother has wept publicly for mercy, Buddhist and Hindu religious leaders have jointly petitioned the Sri Lankan president, and a four-member legal delegation is now traveling to Saudi Arabia — a cross-religious, cross-governmental mobilization racing against an invisible clock.
- Sri Lanka's government has asked the family to cease public statements while diplomacy unfolds, leaving them to wait in a quiet that mirrors the one surrounding Anojan himself.
A 24-year-old Sri Lankan migrant worker named Anojan Sivarasa now faces execution in Saudi Arabia for a Facebook comment he deleted within hours and publicly apologized for — a remark made in the heat of a religious dispute that crossed borders through a screenshot. What began as the ordinary friction of online argument has become a collision between digital impermanence and the permanence of law, between a young man's remorse and a legal system that moved toward its harshest conclusion. His family has not heard his voice since September 28, and the silence that surrounds him is the silence that precedes outcomes no one wishes to name aloud.
Anojan Sivarasa is 24 years old. He is on death row in Saudi Arabia for a comment he posted on Facebook, deleted within hours, and apologized for publicly. The comment — written in Tamil, insulting the Prophet Muhammad — emerged from a chain of online religious arguments that had begun in Sri Lanka after a video of a dog being kicked near a Hindu procession spread across social media. Someone took a screenshot before Anojan removed his words and sent it to his employer in Saudi Arabia.
The company reported him to Saudi authorities. He was arrested in July. His devices were seized, his accounts deleted. An Al-Ahsa Criminal Court sentenced him to five years in prison and a fine of roughly $800,000. His lawyers appealed for a reduction. Saudi prosecutors moved in the opposite direction, appealing for the case to be tried under Sharia law rather than cybercrime legislation. The appellate court agreed. The sentence became death.
Since September 28, his family has heard nothing from him. They notified the Sri Lankan embassy and are still waiting for a response. Saudi Arabia has a documented pattern of executing prisoners without warning their families or foreign governments — relatives are sometimes informed only after the fact. No timeline has been announced in Anojan's case.
His mother has pleaded publicly for mercy through tears, asking that her son's wrongs be forgiven and that he be returned to them. The case has drawn an unusual coalition of responses in Sri Lanka: the president met with the family and pledged to pursue every diplomatic channel; senior Buddhist and Hindu religious leaders jointly submitted a memorandum calling for urgent state intervention; a four-member legal delegation is now traveling to Saudi Arabia to meet with the two law firms handling his defense.
Anojan is one of more than ten million foreign workers in Saudi Arabia, a population that human rights organizations have long identified as particularly vulnerable within the Saudi legal system — isolated, often without adequate representation, navigating proceedings in an unfamiliar language. Blasphemy executions are rare but not without precedent; a Saudi school teacher sentenced to death in 2023 for social media posts was later resentenced to thirty years after international pressure. Whether Anojan's case will follow a similar path is unknown. His family has been asked to stop speaking publicly while diplomacy continues. They wait. The countdown, if there is one, has no visible numbers.
Anojan Sivarasa is 24 years old and facing execution in Saudi Arabia. His crime, according to an appellate court, was a Facebook comment—a response in Tamil that insulted the Prophet Muhammad, posted during an online argument that spiraled out of a religious dispute in his home country of Sri Lanka. He deleted the comment within hours and posted an apology video. It was not enough.
The sequence that brought him to death row began in late June, when footage circulated online showing a young Muslim man kicking a dog that had been following Hindu pilgrims during a religious procession in Sri Lanka. The video ignited religious arguments across social media. During one exchange, a user posted derogatory remarks about a Hindu deity. Anojan responded with his insulting comment about the Prophet. Within hours, he removed it and apologized publicly. But someone—his brother Hamsidan says it was individuals in Sri Lanka, people he declines to name—took a screenshot and sent it to Anojan's employer in Saudi Arabia.
The company reported the comment to Saudi authorities. Anojan was arrested in July. Saudi officials seized his personal devices and deleted his social media accounts. In September, an Al-Ahsa Criminal Court sentenced him to five years in prison and a fine of 3 million Saudi riyals, roughly $800,000. His legal team filed an appeal seeking to reduce the sentence. On September 17, Saudi prosecutors made a different move: they appealed to have Anojan prosecuted under Sharia law instead of the country's cybercrime legislation. The appellate court granted the request. The sentence became death.
Since September 28, Anojan has had no contact with his family. His brother said on that date that Anojan hadn't called in two days. They informed the Sri Lankan embassy and asked officials to investigate. They are still waiting for a response. In Saudi prisons, inmates on death row typically lose access to personal mobile phones; calls are strictly controlled by prison authorities. Saudi Arabia has a documented pattern of carrying out executions without warning families or foreign embassies in advance, informing relatives only after the sentence has been carried out. No official execution timeline has been announced.
Anojan's mother, Rasamanickam Yogalakshmi, has made a public plea for mercy, speaking through tears. "I plead for mercy for the wrongs committed by my son. Please forgive him and send him back to us." The case has reverberated across Sri Lanka. Multiple political parties and government bodies have coordinated diplomatic efforts. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake met with Anojan's family on September 21 and assured them the government would pursue every available channel to obtain a general pardon. Senior Buddhist leaders from two major monastic orders, together with Hindu religious leaders, submitted a memorandum to the Presidential Secretariat calling for urgent state intervention. This week, a four-member Sri Lankan legal delegation is traveling to Saudi Arabia to meet with the two law firms handling Anojan's case and plan next steps.
Anojan is one of more than 10 million foreign workers in Saudi Arabia. Human rights organizations have long documented that low-wage migrant workers face distinct vulnerabilities in the Saudi legal system—language barriers, lack of proper legal representation, isolation from home. Executions for blasphemy are relatively rare in Saudi Arabia compared with those for drug offences or murder, but they do occur. In July 2023, a retired Saudi school teacher named Mohammed Al Ghamdi was sentenced to death over comments on social media. Amnesty International called the ruling absurd. That sentence was later overturned; Al Ghamdi was resentenced to 30 years in prison. Whether Anojan's case will follow a similar arc remains unknown. The Sri Lankan government has instructed his family to stop making public statements while diplomatic efforts continue. The family waits. The clock runs without a visible countdown.
Citas Notables
I plead for mercy for the wrongs committed by my son. Please forgive him and send him back to us.— Rasamanickam Yogalakshmi, Anojan's mother
My brother hasn't called for two days. We informed the embassy and asked officials to look into the matter and update us. They said they would check. We are still waiting.— Hamsidan Sivarasa, Anojan's brother, on September 28
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