BL4: "Why are the Bali 9 still alive on death row if drug crimes are automatuc death penalty cases?": One thing has nothing to do with the other. One aspect, death row, relates to their sentence after having been found guilty, The other apsect is the sentence applied ONCE FOUND GUILTY. So...One needs to go to trial in order to bw found guilty.
I will add that one may be detained both here and there in Indonesia for many years before even going to trial.. No "Speedy Trial" in the part of the wolrd, as you have in N. America.
Danker: "It is wrong for foreigners to try and change a country's basic system/rule of law just because THEY made a mistake and got caught.": OK, but here is the things. Not one of these nations has had basic citizens offer input into the formation of that underlying system.
These nations are incredibly corrupt even up to the point of police dealing the drugs , murdering inncoent people, and performing extortion. If one is truly guilts, I would offer from a moralistic point of view that they should accept the consequnces of their actions...although this is certainly more easier said than done. If anyone was on any deathrow I would imagine that the ony thought floating through their minds would be on how to avoid their premature deaths.
IamJack: "Indonesia being a sovereign state is under no obligation whatsoever to modify its approach to jurisprudence just because some foreigners got nabbed in a voluntary act.": I would agree but then one needs to truly consiuder that ALOT of people in this part of the world are truly framed.
Offering one of many cases: A lady's husband was travelling on his job as an itinerant house painter here in the Philippines, when she went to a neighbourhood pump to gather water for her morning grooming needs when a well known friend of her husband approached saying hi.''
He asked if he might use use her "CR" (local affectation meaning Comfort Room and standing for bathroom). She obliged the man. As they approached her Nipa pronounced "neepah" bamboo shack with thatched grass roof, the dwelling perhaps 90% live in here) she saw 3 men moving about in the shack;s only room.
They came out and told her that she was under arrest. When she had calmed down she asked why and the police pulled from their pocket a medium sized vial of honeyoil (cannabis resin). Since it weighed 11 grams, and 10 is the minimum, she was sentenced to death upon the finding of guilt.
As a person who obviously pays alot of attention to the dynamic, I have yet to oberse 2 people in the this entire nation of more than 7000 island , receiving a verdict of innconet, or having the charges dropped.
Was she guilty? Cannot say but I will tell you that in a nation where police sell the most drugs, where they do not need video or any other kind of corroborating evidence in order to charge a person with a drug crime....Or a nation where police do motorcycle drive bys on drugdealers who refuse to pay police off...I would offer that a whole lot of folks are sitting terrified in prison for crimes they have not done.
Alternatively, under the laws here, if anyone came to visit my home, and I had a 200 poppy seed bagels, that visitor would be getting no less than 12 years and up to 20 whether or not they knew of my possesion becaue of the way the laes are structured.
"Smuggling heroin into Indonesia." But theyer not doing that. They were trying to smuggle it out. To import it is VERY easy. Just like the Philippines Indonesia a series of small to medium islands. All one need do is ship it via sea down the Asian coast from Cambodia, Nam, or even Thailand.
Another possibility is to just take a ferry from Malaysia or the Philippines because most ferry routes here have no Immigration control.
Bingalpaws: Why would you picture me as female? If it is the woman in my avatar, she is my wife and that is her youngest brother. I have 15 or 16 pictures up in Gallery.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
