Mother of Bali Nine ringleader makes plea

Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran

The mother of the Bali Nine ringleader Myuran Sukumaran has asked the Indonesian president to give her son a "second chance".

The Indonesian Supreme Court this month rejected Sukumaran's final appeal against his death sentence for his part in the 2005 plot to smuggle more than eight kilograms of heroin from Bali to Australia.

Sukumaran was the last of the Bali Nine with an appeal pending, and like fellow member Andrew Chan, must now rely on clemency from Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono if he is to avoid a firing squad.

"President please, please give my son a second chance," Rajini Sukumaran told SBS's Dateline.

Reporter Mark Davis who conducted the interview, which was aired last night, followed Ms Sukumaran as she travelled to Bali to see her son for the first time since his appeal was rejected.

Ms Sukumaran said she hopes he will get a second chance.

"He has done a lot of good things in the prison to help a lot of people inside, and I'd ask the president to give him a second chance," she told Dateline.

Ms Sukumaran said she felt shocked when her son's appeal was denied.

"Myuran's doing well in the prison and we thought everything was going to be alright.

"I feel like something has been taken off me. I feel really lost. I don't know what to think anymore."

Sukumaran's sister Brintha said she doesn't think Australians understand what her brother is facing.

"I think because of the way it's been played out in the media, it's almost like, just a story, an ongoing story and it's never really going to end because something's always happening," she told Dateline.

"I don't think they realise that it might actually end one day, and that will be him being executed."

Source: AAP, July 18, 2011

Online petition to spare Bali Aussies from death

A SOCIAL media campaign has been launched in a last-ditch effort to win clemency for the two remaining Bali Nine members on death row.

Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran are due to face the firing squad unless Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono agrees that their death sentences for leading a heroin smuggling plot in 2005 should be set aside.

A group of Melbourne lawyers is spearheading an online push to place pressure on the Indonesian government, hoping to gather enough signatures on a petition through viral email, Facebook and Twitter.

Co-organiser John Riordan said the mercy campaign aimed to win worldwide attention in the next year, while Chan and Sukumaran wait for their clemency bid to be decided.

"We want to reach out to as many Australians and people around the world to show their support, put their name on the petition, and help bring to the President's attention that these two men have rehabilitated and they deserve to be shown mercy," Mr Riordan said.

"A lot of things are stacked up against us."

Dr Yudhoyono has dealt an early blow to the Australians' chances, saying last month that he rejected almost every foreign request for clemency "for the sake of justice".

The death penalty was revived as a politically hot topic after an Indonesian maid was executed in Saudi Arabia, sparking outrage among her countrymen.

Source: The Australian, July 18, 2011

Myuran Sukumaran from Mercy Campaign on Vimeo.

Andrew Chan from Mercy Campaign on Vimeo.

Bali Nine campaign could backfire: Kontras

A respected Indonesian human rights group has criticised a public campaign in Australia which aims to pressure President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono into sparing the lives of the two remaining Bali Nine members on death row.

Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran must now rely on clemency from Dr Yudhoyono if they are to escape the firing squad for their part in a 2005 plot to smuggle more than 8kg of heroin from Bali to Australia.

Their bid for clemency has now become the subject of a public campaign launched by a group of Melbourne lawyers who hope to use social media to gather signatures for an online petition to put pressure on Dr Yudhoyono.

But the Jakarta-based Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, otherwise known as Kontras, has urged the lawyers to drop the online campaign.

A spokesman for the organisation, which campaigns against the death penalty, said on Tuesday that a low-key approach through diplomatic channels had a much greater chance of success.

"It may disturb the pool which is calm now," the spokesman, Papang, said on Tuesday in reference to the online push for clemency.

"The effort should be done diplomatically with SBY's officials, using the example of how the president himself wants Indonesian workers (in the Middle East) also protected from the death penalty."

Dr Yudhoyono recently accused Saudi Arabia of breaking the "norms and manners" of international relations when it beheaded an Indonesian maid for murder.

The execution sparked outrage in Indonesia and prompted the president to order the payment of $503,000 in "blood money" to a Saudi family so it would agree to spare another maid from execution.

Darsem binti Dawud Tawar, who has now returned to Indonesia, had been convicted by a Riyadh court in 2009 and sentenced to death for murdering a relative of her Yemeni employer in Saudi Arabia. She claimed she acted in self-defence, after he allegedly tried to rape her.

Kontras warned that attempts to apply public pressure on Dr Yudhoyono to grant clemency to Chan and Sukumaran were likely to backfire.

"People will be saying that this issue was raised and funded by foreign people and Indonesia is being controlled by a foreign power," Papang said.

"The best way for now would be to adopt a diplomatic approach and focus efforts on trying to reduce the sentence."

Lawyers for Chan and Sukumaran have said they were likely to apply to the president for clemency but are yet to do so.

They have also urged for a diplomatic approach.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd raised the issue of clemency for Australians facing death or serving long sentences in Indonesian jails during a visit to Jakarta earlier this month.

Source: AAP, July 19, 2011

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