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| Andrew Chan (left) Myuran Sukumaran (right) |
The Indonesian attorney-general's office has received notice that Australian drug trafficker Andrew Chan is to be executed.
However, a time and place for the execution has not yet been decided after Chan and his fellow Australian death row inmate, Myuran Sukumaran, were denied presidential pardons.
The ABC's Indonesia correspondent says Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran need "new evidence" to get a judicial review.
If they can't do that, they won't get the review and it will be up to the processes in the attorney-general department to decide when the execution is scheduled. The government plans to execute 14 more people this year.
As far as other options for holding off the process or delaying the process, the attorney-general spokesman said there were technicalities effectively around the way that it works, in the scheduling of the execution and in certain things that need to be provided.
They need to be provided with appropriate religious support. He cited a case of one of the women who was executed last Sunday had converted from Buddhism to Catholicism, so there was a delay because they had to find an appropriate Catholic priest to be able to give her counselling in her final moments.
There are just some technicalities around the process itself but effectively the government is determined to send a strong message against drug smugglers. It's determined not to allow any leniency or clemency for drug smugglers. So potentially we could see these 2 men facing the firing squad as soon as the government can manage to schedule it.
The letter declaring that Andrew Chan's bid for a presidential pardon had been denied, arrived in Bali yesterday.
The attorney-general Muhammad Prasetyo previously said that Chan and Sukumaran would be executed together because they were convicted for the same crime.
The pair were given the death penalty for their role organising the so-called Bali 9 heroin trafficking attempt.
Mr Prasetyo's office confirmed that it received a copy of the letter yesterday, but was yet to decide where or when the pair would be executed.
It is expected the 2 Australians would get approximately 3 days' notice leading up to their executions.
Meanwhile, the men will attempt to appeal for a judicial review.
Technically the men have exhausted their legal avenues for appeal and have already had one judicial review at the Supreme Court level.
However, they are pressing for a review of the entire legal process as well as the president's clemency decision itself.
The 6 people put to death in Indonesia last weekend were denied clemency just a month earlier, and given 3 days' notice of their execution.
An expert in Indonesian law at Melbourne University, Dave McCraem, said it was difficult to predict when the pair would face the firing squad.
"There are no certain timelines with executions in Indonesia. You only have to look at the 6 executions last weekend to see that," he said.
"The woman from Vietnam who was executed was sentenced in 2011 whereas the other 5 people had been in prison for more than 10 years."
Pardon denial 'barbaric": Australian artist Quilty
Archibald Prize-winning artist Ben Quilty said it was barbaric to deny a presidential pardon for 2 Australian drug smugglers being held in Indonesia.
He had advocated for clemency to be granted to Sukumaran and Chan, and has visited them in Bali for the past 4 years.
Quilty told 702 ABC Sydney he was devastated by the news.
"Obviously it's very bleak. It's very very bleak, and the outcome is very barbaric," he said.
"I'm bringing my children up to know that you never punch, you never hit, you never shirt-front and you definitely don't shoot people, and that forgiveness and compassion are the two things that if my children have, I'll be proud of them no matter what."
Flawed masculinity is a recurring theme in artist Ben Quilty's work, which explores young men facing their ultimate fears and own mortality.
Quilty, who has run art lessons for Sukumaran and other inmates, said the pair should not have to die for foolish decisions they made as young men when they have made such gains since then.
"I can promise you, you sit in front of them and can see it in their eyes and realise the way they have rehabilitated themselves - and the Indonesians have rehabilitated them as well, they should be applauded for it," he said.
"But to then, at the end of 10 years of this incredible rehabilitation, to put bullets in their chests is just unfathomable. I can't get my head around it."
Melbourne pastor Christie Buckingham also visited the pair frequently, and said she had no doubt they had been reformed.
"In Indonesian law there is a place for rehabilitation, there is a place if the condemned is rehabilitated that they will not be executing," Ms Buckingham said.
"These boys are reformed, I can vouch for them, other people who have seen them can vouch for them, the governor of the prison made an unprecedented appeal that he has seen their reform."
Source: ABC news, January 23, 2015
Hopes that Bali 9 pair will be spared
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| Kerobokan prison |
Campaigners for 2 Australian drug traffickers on death row in Indonesia haven't given up hope that the men can be saved.
Australian supporters of Bali 9 death row inmates Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran say hope is not lost for the pair despite both having their last pleas for mercy rejected.
Local support for Chan and Sukumaran has soared since Chan was told on Thursday his bid for clemency from Indonesian President Joko Widodo had failed.
Brigid Delaney, co-founder of the organisation Mercy Campaign, which is working to save the men's lives, said support for Chan and Sukumaran was growing stronger, with more than 50,000 signatures gathered on two petitions seeking mercy for the men.
Interest in the case had been so strong the Mercy Campaign website crashed temporarily before being upgraded, and traffic on its Facebook site had increased "1000 %", Ms Delaney said.
"Hope is not lost," she said.
Final hopes for Chan, 31, and Sukumaran, 33, now rest on a judicial review being sought by their Indonesian and Australian lawyers, and continuing diplomatic efforts behind the scenes.
It is not clear that Indonesia's supreme court will allow the review to proceed.
Ms Delaney said the lawyers hoped to present new evidence about the turnaround Chan and Sukumaran had made during their nearly 10 years in prison.
However, their 1st attempt to lodge the new appeal was foiled by a requirement that anyone seeking a review appear in person at the court - an option not open to the imprisoned Australians.
Chan, 31, is destined to face a firing squad for his 2005 drug trafficking offence, along with Sukumaran, 33, who has also lost his bid for a pardon.
News of Chan's rejection came as the Australian lawyer for the pair, Julian McMahon, was visiting them in Bali's Kerobokan prison.
Mr McMahon told the 9 Network that Chan prayed with a group of fellow inmates after receiving the news, then went to comfort another prisoner who was seriously ill.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the Australian government would not make further public comments but was "continuing to make every possible effort" to stop the executions.
"While Australia respects Indonesia's sovereignty, we are asking that Indonesia reconsider its decision to execute 2 Australian citizens," he said in a statement.
Mr Abbott said both men were reformed and had helped to rehabilitate other prisoners.
He said he had spoken with both men's families on Friday and it was "an unimaginably difficult time" for them.
Deputy federal opposition leader Tanya Plibersek said the opposition stood with the government in pleading for clemency from Indonesia.
"Of course these 2 young men have done the wrong thing and of course they should be punished," she said.
"But Labor always believes that the death penalty is wrong. The death penalty is wrong for anyone in any circumstance and we will always advocate for Australians facing the death penalty."
Indonesia's attorney-general has not named a time or date for the execution of Chan and Sukumaran.
6 people were executed for drug offences in Indonesia on Sunday - the 1st of 26 prisoners the country's government has said will be killed this year.
Source: sbs.com.au, January 23, 2015
Capital punishment and public opinion
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| Joko Widodo |
The campaign to abolish capital punishment in Indonesia suffered a huge setback following the execution of 6 drug traffickers over the weekend. The voices of abolitionists were drowned out by those who came out in support of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, who used the executions as an important part of his war against drug abuse in this country. Public opinion in Indonesia is still overwhelmingly in favor of retaining capital punishment, certainly for the most heinous crimes, including drug trafficking, which is rampant in this country and has such deadly effects. The execution of the 6 people who had lingered on death row for years may have revived the debate on capital punishment. Looking at public opinion and social media, retentionists have not only prevailed, but they also won more recruits.
11th-hour appeals last week in phone calls to Jokowi for stays of execution from Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and King Willem of the Netherlands, whose citizens were among the 6 executed, fell on deaf ears. Prime Minister Tony Abbott has also been on the phone with Jokowi trying to save two convicted Australian drug traffickers, whose executions are apparently imminent. Abbott has to prepare for disappointment and Indonesia for more diplomatic fallout.
The foreign leaders' interventions, well-meaning as they are, may even have done a disservice to the abolitionists' cause. The executions have now been turned into a question of Indonesia's national pride with accusations flying about the West imposing its human rights values on us. But, as the saying goes, the harder they push, the stronger Indonesia pushes back. In response to these foreign meddlers, Indonesia has invoked its sovereignty rights and legal system, which recognizes the death penalty. And with 58 more on death row, we can expect a few more executions, including many non-Indonesians, in the coming days or weeks, just to make a point.
The human rights campaigners and abolitionists have now learned to their dismay that compassion is not President Jokowi's strongest suit, if he has any at all.
They should have known better. We have a leader who nurtures his power and political legitimacy mostly from public opinion, perhaps more than any other president before him because he does not control any political party.
This may have been the reason why barely 3 months into office, Jokowi ordered the executions of the dozens of drug traffickers on death row. His sagging popularity must have improved for taking a strong stand on drug abuses and for standing up to foreign meddlers.
His predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono waited at least a few years, although he too used capital punishment to shore up his public support. It was no coincidence that he ordered the executions of 10 people in 2008 and four in 2013 - both times 1 year before a general election.Taking someone else's life is murder. There is no other word to describe it. These are murders legitimated by the country's law and, more importantly, by public opinion.
The nation accepted uncritically President Jokowi's repeated argument that 40 to 50 people die every day because of drug addiction. Even if this fatality figure was true, how many people in this country die of smoking and smoking-related diseases? And how many people die, many of slow death, because of poverty and poor access to health care because the country's elite have been stealing money through rampant corruption. Since more people die of heart diseases, can you make a similar argument of how many people die because of eating too much meat?
The National Narcotic Agency (BNN) says more than 4.2 million people in this country are addicted drug users, making Indonesia a haven and a lucrative market for drug traffickers. Jokowi has declared Indonesia under a state of emergency.
This is something that many Indonesians will quickly embrace because it gives them a convenient scapegoat. Surely the responsibility of containing drug abuse first and foremost must fall on parents and the family and then the school, the religious leaders and their communities and then on the law enforcement agencies and the government. Supporters of the death penalty for drug traffickers rely on religious leaders endorsing the killing of human beings, even though most major religions advocate compassion and forgiveness above any act of vengeance.
The jury is still out that the death penalty will deter drug traffickers, but then this matters little in Indonesia. Public opinion very much wants it. Little did the public know that Indonesia was close to abolishing the death penalty from its books in 2008. A small band of abolitionists submitted a petition to the Constitutional Court and it lost by a single vote. Insiders say the vote would have been 5 to 4 in favor of abolition, but at the last minute 1 judge switched sides to retain capital punishment, apparently because he too sensed that was what the public wanted.
The campaign to abolish capital punishment is not over by any means. Clearly a large part of the battle has to be fought in the public sphere. Abolitionists need to organize and get their act together and most of all they need to learn how to win public opinion to their side.
Source: Commentary; Endy Bayuni, who is a senior editor of The Jakarta Post, January 23, 2015
Australia asks Indonesia to rethink death penalty for 2 drug offenders
Australia called on Indonesia on Friday to reconsider its decision to execute 2 Australians convicted of drug offences, a move that is likely to strain already fragile ties between the 2 neighbours.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the 2 members of the so-called Bali 9 who were arrested at Bali's Denpasar airport in 2005 for attempting to smuggle 8 kg (18 lb) of heroin to Australia were reformed characters who had helped rehabilitate other prisoners.
"The prerogative of mercy should be extended to them," Abbott said in a statement. "Australia opposes the death penalty at home and abroad."
Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who took office in October, has pledged no clemency for drug offenders, drawing criticism from rights activists at home and abroad.
Indonesia executed 6 convicted drug traffickers, including 5 foreigners, by firing squad last week. Brazil and the Netherlands recalled their ambassadors from Jakarta, while Nigeria summoned the Indonesian ambassador in Abuja to protest against the execution of their citizens.
Abbott said he and Foreign Minister Julia Bishop had made direct representations to their Indonesian counterparts and "are continuing to make every possible effort through the most effective channels" to stop the executions of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.
It was not immediately clear when the executions of Sukumaran, 33, and Chan, 31, might take place.
Bishop said earlier this week she would not rule out recalling the Australian ambassador should the executions be carried out.
"This is an unimaginably difficult time for the families of these young men," Abbott said. "I spoke with both families today and will ensure the government continues to support them."
Indonesia has a record of imposing severe penalties for drug trafficking, resuming executions in 2013 after a 5-year gap.
Relations between Indonesia and Australia hit a low in late 2013 after reports that Australia had spied on top Indonesian officials, including then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife.
Indonesia froze military and intelligence cooperation with Australia and restored relations in May 2014.
Abbott said the government would make no further public comment on the case in the interests of the convicted men.
Source: Reuters, January 23, 2015
