muted response by canberra........
How are you feeling about her treatment and the prospect of her punnishment?

I personally feel that as soon as the firing squad was mentioned she should have been brought home to deal with. Even if she did an illegal thing we as a civilised group of people do not kill our criminals(even when maybe we should).

I would feel exactly the same were an Australian citizen in America facing the death panalty, it isn't our law we shouldn't suffer for the brutal unnesesary behavior of another government.

I don't know anything about this, do you have a link to a newspaper story perhaps?

Yes, please. I'm drawing a blank too.

If a forigner commited an illegal act in America, then they should be sent to thier respective government for punishment and be banned in the states.

As I read the article, at first I thought; "Well, if she's commited the crime then she has to be responsible for it and take whatever punishment she's given." Probably not the most beeding heart liberal response, but that's what I was thinking. Yes, I don't agree with capital punishment, but at the same time if she knew the consequences and she still tried to smuggle drugs into the country, then the Australian government shouldn't be expected to ask for her deportation to Australia. The laws of other countries have to be respected. "


Then I read this bit of the article.

Did you get that? That's 31 people out of 54 (58% of the total death row inmate population) with 20 of the 31 foreigners.(65% of drug charges) A nice safe target... foreigners! They're outsiders, they can't speak the language, they look different, and if you kill them there won't be any Indonesian families who will have lost a family member.



Witch hunt anyone? Sounds like the American War on Drugs on crack (pun intended) though with alot more popular support and media attention.



Sorry about the excessive quoting. I just found this article really interesting and a bit scary.

I'm appalled at the way her case been treated - which just shows how blind I am to this type of thing happening. All the refused requests for evidence and examinations, in my opinion, are unacceptable. If it weren't the death penalty, I would feel better about her being punished and having to go to jail... but the loss of a life heightens the case. Not to mention the fact that you would be executed for drugs in the first place - it does seem like a witch hunt, and it's very frightening. I think this may show the problems within the Indonesian judicial system by this woman's example. Whether she's innocent or guilty, those requests should have been granted, and the death penalty is pretty harsh for drugs, IMO. But that's just me.

Jaq, the most shocking thing about the article is that by any reasonable assessment, she didn't do it. Any judge with a shred of decency would long ago have thrown the case against her out of court.

I actually know somebody who, on holiday to Thailand (with much the same attitude towards such things as Indonesia) had drugs planted in her bags in the airport as she was about to leave. Fortunately, she noticed them when checking her bags in the bathroom, and left them in a bin. As she went to depart, customs officers pulled her aside and frantically searched her bags, before finally letting her go.

Where are Amnesty International when you need them?

*puts on Devil's Advocate hat*

I'd like to look at the larger issue. Why shouldn't you be bound by a country's laws when inside that country? Let's look at a hypothetical situation. Let's suppose a visitor from the Kingdom of Blah came to visit my country, England. Let's also assume that the Kingdom of Blah has a very different legal system. In Blah, rape is not illegal. Neither is murder. However, wearing a pink hat is punishable by death.

When our Blah-ian visitor is in London, he rapes and kills a women. Should be tried and convicted in England, where he will likely face life imprisonment, according to UK law? Or should be deported back to Blah, where he'll be given a nasty telling off, but not convicted of anything, because he's not guilty of anything under Blah-ian law ?

On the flip side, let's say he wears a pink hat while in London. Should he be put to death as he would be under Blah-ian law? Of course not - he's in London.

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If I assume that the woman in this case was guilty, then I absolutely believe that she should be punished according to the laws of the country in which she committed a crime.

The larger issue of corruption in the system which finds a visitor guilty is a thorny one, and I accept that there needs to be an appeal system whereby a country can retrieve it's citizens that are victims of corrupt law enforcement abroad.

To paraphrase Albert Camus: All of your precious principles are not worth one hair on this woman's head.

Laws do not constrain morality. If the legal system is corrupt and unjust, we have a duty to defy it, undermine it, ignore it. How can you say that a woman should die to preserve a backward and tyrannical legal system?



Because the laws are wrong. Hey, all those Communists and homosexuals killed by the Nazis? I guess they shouldn't have broken the law!


Recently, a forumite visited Jamaica, a country where homosexuality is illegal, with her same-sex lover. If she had been arrested, would you be arguing that her sentence was just?

I'm more than a little shocked that on such an intelligent and opinionated board nobody has been watching the news enough to know what I'm talking about without a news report after all you lot have an opinion about everything else
trully bizzare
I can't help but feel that the news is trying to make her look like a huge sob story what with every second peice of footage showing her with a cute stuffed koala toy or fainting and becoming hysterical from the stress, it pisses me off just as much as the parents of that toddler who lost her limbs when a car crashed into her preschool useing her to get stuff for themselves at every turn( most recently a dog trained to open doors).
but I'm equally P-ed that our government is not forcing indonesia to see sence<sp and let her go. Indonesia is practically in the dark ages with their attitudes towards human and animal rights they can't be allowed to go around condemning people just because they can get away with it, giving them that power is like giving a country to a six year old who can have no consept of the gravity or moral implications of their actions.

Jonman on another flipside would you feel it was just if an English person went to blah and was put to death for pink-hat wearing?

Or would it be just as unjust as Schapelle corby being (potentially) killed for something which she may or may not have done but which is certainly not an offence worthy of such harsh punnishment?

Exactly.. I was actually going to say something about that, but didn't have time in the last post.

It's obvious *puts on conspiracy hat* that this drug war in Indonesia which the government is fighting is only to serve to distract the citizen's attention from different issues which the government is responsible for. I'm not sure what these issues are, but dangit, there's gotta be issues! I'm guessing poverty and living conditions, as that seems to be the most obvious.

As long as the Indonesian government continues to blame the nice, easy, safe targets (the ones that can't be in any way linked to government incompetence) for the living conditions or human rights violations in Indonesia or whatever else, then the citizens will continue to be distracted from the real problems and not bring the government to task.

I feel that it probably has something to do with only very few of us being in Australia, I can't see it making huge news over here.

EDIT: Just went on google to look, the only link I found was this one

This is a difficult legal situation. I am not well versed in international law, however, I believe that a criminal within a foreign country's boarders is usually given representation from their home country, often from their embassy, and will often be deported to be charged with the crime under their laws. This happens often with Mexico and the United States. We allow the Mexican legal system to try Mexicans who could be given the death penalty if found guilty. However, I don't know whether or not it is wrong in and of itself to try someone with the laws of the country. The corruption of the enforcement has nothing to do with whether or not it is right that she be given the death penalty if she did the crime, it has to do with whether or not it is right to even put her on trial.

It's huge news in Australia. I read a broadsheet every day, but - understandably - an Australian citizen being tried for a crime in Indonesia hasn't been much reported over here. Similarly, I read very little about Terri Schiavo, while she was apparently just about the only thing that the US news cared about.

Equally, while arguing with logic I would say you have to be bound by the laws of the country you are in, otherwise people returning from Amsterdam could be prosecuted over here. However, if you are a citizen of somewhere where homesexuality is legal and you holiday somewhere it isn't then you shouldn't be prosecuted. I can't really square those two. Aside from anything else though, blatantly it was a plant and even if it wasn't no one deserves to die for the ownership or even dealership of marijauna. If the government is killing people for some political stance then defy them by all means.

todays news is that she probably won't face firing squad but is seriously facing life imprisonment<sp which is still off.

link
Well, it looks like they've come to a verdict. Terrible, really.

If making her look like a sob story saves her life then good for them.

I found these quotes on sites linkes by Snoo and elphaba2:



I'm sorry business? They are probably citizens of the country you are in but ones that happened to be of Indonesian origin. It's not their fault and protesting outside Indonesian owned busineses wil do nothing for her but harm the people who own the business.



Again, it's not the tsunami victims fault. How can people justify victimising ordinairy citizens because of the actions of their corrupt government? It's ridiculous.

Well, I certainly hope the Australian government bloody well does something about it. Letting this woman rot in some prison hellhole because some stupid backward judges said so and, gosh, we can't offend our allies! would be a disgusting miscarriage of justice.

A stupid backward judge who in something like 30 years has never found ANYONE innocent (never mind that he sits around looking like a giant arrogant toad).

Most disgusting is that the indonesian people have now been told about the case in such a way that THEY are trying to get her the death penalty. Talk about ignorant blood thirsty c**ks. They should all be locked away for they're own good.

Half of asia is still in the mindset that england,america,australia and most of eorope<sp were in 200 years ago. If they can't grow up on their own in thier own time then I can't see that leaving the them to be powerfully and publicly loony to their own people as well as every one else is much more than straight out Dangerous, Irrisponsible and an Infringement of human rights they practically NEED to be saved from themselves.




*fume* *fume*

First off - the muted response from Canberra...

John Howhard urged the Australian people to "trust the Indonesian justice system... We have to respect the justice system of other countries..." This is diplomatic speak for:


If Howhard started to get toey about her treatment then the Indonesian government would at best clam up, at worst they'll tell Australia to mind it's own f***ing business and then be less willing to co-operate in later prisoner exchanges.

Is this the best policy? I'm not sure, but it makes economic, political and military sense to keep Indonesia happy with her neighbour to the South. Canberra relies on Jakarta for assistance in keeping out all those politically undesirable immigrants, it needs Indonesian assistance in the war on terror (especially given that Jumar Islamir is the greatest terrorist threat to Australian interests in the region), Canberra fears it's militarily stronger Northern neighbour, covets it's markets for exclusive Indo-Australian trade deals, and needs Indonesian co-operation to exploit all those offshore oilfields...
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It will be interesting to see how few Ausies, Kiwis Yanks and Europeans will now visit Indonesia. After the Tsunami - the whole country has been economically devastated by the lack of tourists. A protest stay away by even Australia on it's own will really hurt the Indonesian recovery.

Now is the time for pressure groups in Oz and abroad - not to target Indonesian embassies but to target travel agents and tour operators.
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We in the West have our own fair share of giant arrogant toads who sit around finding people guilty (or at least habitually instructing the juries to find them guilty)... Though it does annoy that Jakarta has simply used this (most probably) innocent woman as a political pawn.

This has just been a political show trial, and full blame should eventually rest with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono - who could/should have intervened instead of jumping on the convict her bandwagon.

The majority of the Indonesian crowds baying for this woman's blood are from the extremist Islamic rent-a-mob who would be equally happy screaming for the death penalty if she had been accused of tripping over a matchstick instead of drugs smuggling. These people are many, but they are still the minority (albeit a vast one). According to various independent news agencies and journalists the majority of Indonesians who aren't being filmed by the domestic or foreign media, don't really care.
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Most of Asia is incomparable to the West. They have a different mindset, different societies (plural) and different ethics; as such are nothing like what we were 200 years ago... If they were, then they'd have sailed over and invaded England enslaving the population, 'cos that’s what we were doing to them 200 years ago.

In many respects most of Asia is doing just fine and they don't need the West to interfere in their countries... when the West has interfered in Asia it has almost always been for the worse. You talk about needing to save them from themselves? We caused most of the problems that Asia now faces throughout the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries... the various Empires basically consisted of the West stealing what it wanted and giving NOTHING in return other than setting up political despots and dictatorships that have failed the local peoples again and again.

I'm sure that many with the US government thought that Vietnam needed to be saved from itself in the 1960s and 70s... and we can all see with clear hindsight what a mess that whole commie-busting conflict caused. As can be seen with the deaths of 58,226 Americans, 500 Aussies and 38 Kiwis... oh and the deaths of an estimated one million Vietnamese combatants and four million Vietnamese civilians - the war in Vietnam didn't do much good. The very recent UN and EU sponsored engagement talks with Vietnam are beginning to show some progress, with the US position gradually softening.

Indonesia - by the way, suffered under it's former dictator Suhato - who was specifically kept in power by the US, Australian, UK and other European governments (e.g. the British Department of Trade and Industry signed a control order that allowed a UK arms company to make a complete torture chamber and then ship it to Jakarta for the special police and army to use). The World Bank and WTO loaned billions to Indonesia knowing full well that Suhato and his family were pocketing most of the money whilst the majority of the people starved in abject poverty. With this legacy of supporting dictators who've absolutely no regard for human rights, how can we hope that in these specific countries we will ever see justice?

It took years and plenty of UN intervention before East Temor got sorted out. Aceh is still under concentration camp style martial law, and the government is playing off sectarian rivalries between Christians and Muslims across the country. In all of this I agree with depressed lonely crazy person we do NEED to intervene but we need to do it carefully.

What is needed is fair and compassionate intervention internally (aid freely available to help prevent starvation, illness and disease; support for pro democracy and human rights groups; support for educating the majority of Indonesians - etc). Coupled to this we will also need strong external intervention. Trade Sanctions and Embargoes until human rights are observed. A total end to all arms sales to Indonesia. Freezing foreign assets of key politicians until democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law are applied fairly and fully. Sanctions against some trade and export. Applying diplomatic pressure and even supporting opposition pro-rights political parties.

I think I just had an epiphany... I've always deplored the tactics of the violent anarchists, but this strikes me as a very good time to put on some ski masks and blow up a factory.

Dear all - please note that I do not advocate any form of illegality, at all...honest.

That said... there was a case a few years back where a group of protestors broke into an RAF base and damaged several Hawk Fighter/Bomber/Trainer Jets that were due to be shipped to Indonesia. At court they claimed these were weapons that were going to be used to oppress (ie bomb) civilians. The judge directed the jury to find them guilty of criminal damage amounting to several million pounds. The jury acquitted them all.

In stark contrast - local councils are now using ASBOs to imprison peaceful protestors (although in one case a lay magistrate dropped the charges - criticising the local council for trying to stiffle peaceful protest against an arms company).