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Indonesia | 14 years on death row: Timeline of Mary Jane Veloso’s ordeal and fight for justice

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MANILA, Philippines — The case of Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina on death row in Indonesia for drug trafficking, has spanned over a decade and remains one of the most high-profile legal battles involving an overseas Filipino worker. Veloso was arrested on April 25, 2010, at Adisucipto International Airport in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, after she was found in possession of more than 2.6 kilograms of heroin. She was sentenced to death in October – just six months after her arrest. Indonesia’s Supreme Court upheld the penalty in May 2011.

Sister Helen Prejean: Starting a conversation with President Obama

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President Obama met with the press before his visit with Pope Benedict on July 10. He talked about how he admired Cardinal Bernardine’s “seamless garment” approach to pro-life, that the cardinal included in its scope a wide range of issues: “He was concerned about poverty, he was concerned with how children were treated, he was concerned about the death penalty…”

Now here’s interesting fodder for a conversation with President Obama. For starters: “Aren’t you, too, very, very concerned about the fact that already 135 innocent people have been released from death row? How many will it take before we recognize the failed system? Not to mention the shocking, appalling racist application of the death penalty presently carried out in the Deep South states.”

Do you have any ideas about how we might get a conversation going with President Obama and his wife, Michelle, about this issue? Would you like to help us mount a young people’s letter writing campaign to the White House to end the death penalty in the U.S.?

Think boldly. Organize strategically. Act quickly. Please respond and let me know your thinking!

- Sister Helen, July 22, 2009
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