Rizana's family is eargerly waiting for a good news

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and Amnesty International (AI) also requested Sri Lankan authorities to lodge an appeal on Rizana Nafeek’s behalf before the deadline of the sixteenth of July.

A panel of three judges sentenced to death Rizana, a young Muslim maid from Sri Lanka.

She was given a month to appeal which expires in a week's time. She now faces execution, which in Saudi Arabia means beheading.

Minor sentenced

The rights watchdogs quote the maid as claiming the baby choked on its milk and she was unable to revive it.

They say that she's had no legal representation throughout the whole affair and, crucially, that she was a minor at the time of the baby's death.

We are writing this to bring to your kind notice the pitiful plight of this young woman and to urge you to take all appropriate actions to ensure that she will be provided with legal assistance to enable her to file this appeal AHRC letter to Foreign Ministry

The agency who recruited her allegedly falsified her papers to add six years to her age.

But her birth certificate which was not presented to the court shows she was seventeen at the time.

Amnesty International (AI) recalls that Saudi Arabia is a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)

This "expressly prohibits the execution of offenders for crimes committed when they were under 18 years old" said AI.

The Hong-Kong based Asian Human Rights Commission said what had happened was an enormous tragedy, but it wanted to prevent an innocent teenager being executed.

It says that it will provide one third of the legal fee for an appeal in Saudi Arabia.

In a letter to the Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Palitha Kohona, the AHRC urged him to seriously consider funding legal support for Miss Nafeek.

Sri Lanka embassy

The letter reads: “We are writing this to bring to your kind notice the pitiful plight of this young woman and to urge you to take all appropriate actions to ensure that she will be provided with legal assistance to enable her to file this appeal”.

	King might respect international obligations to save a juvenile's life

The Sri Lanka embassy in Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, says the officials are working onto appeal against the death sentence.

“The Embassy of Sri Lanka is actively pursuing all possible avenues, including the judicial appeal against the death sentence, to save her life,” a statement issued by the embassy said.

However, Sri Lankan officials are yet to receive copies of official documents related to the sentence, ambassador Adam MJ Sadiq told BBC Sandeshaya.