Bali Nine Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran to be executed together in Bal

Bali Nine executions: Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan’s chances at pardon dealt another blow

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AUSTRALIA has never convinced a regional government to abandon plans to execute a drug runner and faces a bleak battle trying to persuade Joko Widodo to spare the lives of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.

The new Indonesian President has reactivated executions as a way to stamp his authority and would struggle to find any reason to spare the two Australians, especially after it executed five foreigners at the weekend.

The Prime Minister has sent two letters to President Widodo appealing for clemency, which Mr Abbott’s office yesterday declined to make public.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop — who met the families of both death-row prisoners at the weekend and has vowed to “exhaust all avenues” -- wrote to her counterpart in December appealing for mercy, which did not receive a positive response.

Professor Tim Lindsey, from Melbourne University’s Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society, says both will have their work cut out trying to persuade President Widodo to make exceptions of Chan and Sukumaran.

He said President Widodo was exercised by issues involving corruption, democracy and making life easier for small businesses, but human rights was not a strong point.

“We speak to people in Indonesia who say he’s not particularly focused on human rights issues,” Professor Lindsey said.

“He’s interested in transparency and openness. It reflects his background as a provincial, medium-sized business entrepreneur. Human rights is not at the forefront of his thinking.

“And we must understand that death sentence for drugs has wide support in Indonesia, because rightly or wrongly, they consider it akin to mass murder.”

Further damaging the hopes of the two Australians who were sentenced to death in 2006 is that President Widodo, who arrived in power last year with wide public support, has few friends in Congress or Jakarta’s political elite.

“This is not a strong first term president,” says Professor Lindsey. “He’s putting it together, trying to build his coalition and make it solid.”

Executing drug runners is seen as an uncontroversial mainstream decision in Indonesia, and President Widodo would not want to risk upsetting the partners he needs in Congress to pass legislation.

Ms Bishop said on Sky News yesterday that Chan and Sukumaran had been discussed in more than 50 one-on-one meetings between Australian and Indonesian leaders over the past decade, but to no avail.

Ms Bishop, who said executing the two would not solve the drug problem, said Indonesia argued it was “facing a crisis in terms of drug trafficking and it believes that the death penalty should apply”.

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http://www.news.com.au/world/bali-n...alt-another-blow/story-fndir2ev-1227190042710
 
I just had a fantasy. Just as the prisoners are about to be shot a heavily armed australian special forces team springs into action kills all the paramilitary fuckers and saves the prisoners lives. I mean other than bitch really loud there isn't shit that tiny little island nation could do.
 
They have a HUGE population and loads of nutcases, like extremists. They aren't very far from Australia. They actually come here on really shitty boats. I'm sure we have a very good navy and army, but I doubt we wont to piss them off like that!

We piss them off more and we'd see more bombings in the tourist areas there where millions of Aussies goto holiday.
 
poledriver said:
They have a HUGE population and loads of nutcases, like extremists. They aren't very far from Australia. They actually come here on really shitty boats. I'm sure we have a very good navy and army, but I doubt we wont to piss them off like that!

We piss them off more and we'd see more bombings in the tourist areas there where millions of Aussies goto holiday.
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Haha as an American I sometimes forget that it's not normal for every country to hate you.
 
U
kytnism said:
taken from the exact same article, and following the sentence you so carefully quoted, this was the following data.



where A) a definitive location within brisbane was not established nor named? especially in the likes of "brunswick st" other than citing "socialising at a karaoke bar"

and B) again, where all evidence leads to social association within sydney, australia and bali, indonesia.

...kytnism...:|
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It was Cyber City. That place is crazy as fuck. There were always rumours that it was owned by the Yakuza, and that even the cocktails have msg added to them. I never thought it was yakuza owned but I always had the feeling it was a front for money laundering.
 
"They are walked to the execution site by a priest or cleric and given three minutes to calm down."

brutal. i can't even begin to imagine the horror.

alasdair
 
Bali Nine drug smuggler Andrew Chan’s powerful message to Australians

BALI Nine drug smuggler Andrew Chan, who is awaiting execution by firing squad, has penned a powerful letter to his 15-year-old self, warning of the stupidity of his actions.

The letter features in a new documentary aimed at high school students, Dear Me: The Dangers of Drugs, in which Chan chastises himself for leading a heroin trafficking ring that has landed him on death row.

The six-page letter also addresses the teenagers of Australia to warn them off a life of drugs and crime.

“I don’t know what choices you guys are making, however, if anything, I would want you guys to remember is, ‘Is it worth it?’,” he says in the film.

“You are still young and you have some serious decisions to make in your life. What you choose today will make what you become tomorrow.

“If you want to be a thug and a big bad wolf, I’ll see you soon inside.

“But for those that want to do something in life, I’d like you guys to see how important it is to put your head down and study hard.”

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He laments the life he has missed out on, having been behind bars in Kerobokan prison in Bali since April 17, 2005. He was sentenced to death for leading a scheme to smuggle 8.3kg of heroin into Australia from Thailand.

“At the end of the day, I’m only 29 years old and, the truth is, I might not be able to see my 30th birthday. How many of you want to follow in my footsteps?

And I hope these words will penetrate through your minds and in your hearts and that most of you, if not all of you, will achieve more than I ever did,” he says.

“I have missed weddings, funerals, just the simple presence of my family. The hurt and pain that I don’t just put onto myself but my family is agonising. A simple touch such as a hug is not possible for a condemned man like me.

“I have nothing but an iron bar to hug rather than to be embraced by those I love and who I miss. Most likely, I won’t have the chance to see such things such as the birth of my first child, let alone have a child.

“My life is a perfect example of an absolute waste. That does not have to be for you.”

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Chan encourages today’s youth to seek out help, whether it be from a school counsellor, a youth centre, or a church, to avoid ending up like him.

The director of Dear Me, Malinda Rutter, first met Chan at Kerobokan Prison two years ago and she says he is a changed man.

“Andrew Chan is a very different person to the person that was arrested,” Rutter told news.com.au.

“He’s funny, articulate, he is charismatic and has a very caring personality. You would not think that of a drug smuggler on death row.”

She made the documentary with the hope that it would inspire empathy for Chan and his fellow Bali Nine inmate Myuran Sukumaran.

“They realise their mistakes and where they slipped through the cracks and they’ve worked hard to turn their lives around,” Rutter said.

“I’m proud to call Andrew my friend.”

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http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/re...e-to-australians/story-fnq2o7dd-1227192061969
 
Reading that article made my heart hurt. I can't believe they would first off wait ten fucking years to do this but just the way it's going to be done seems so savage. I will never set foot in Indonesia or give a dime of my money to that terrible place. I don't pray but I've been keeping these men in my mind and will continue to do so.
 
One Thousand Words said:
U
It was Cyber City. That place is crazy as fuck. There were always rumours that it was owned by the Yakuza, and that even the cocktails have msg added to them. I never thought it was yakuza owned but I always had the feeling it was a front for money laundering.
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Cyber City is not crazy, Cyber City is a fucking joke, a bunch of nobodys a bunch of clowns
 
chan's clemency plea was rejected.

these guys were kids when they fucked up, and they will be murdered for it. i really feel for their families.






i will never go to bali
 
^ yeah

Bali Nine: Death row blow for Andrew Chan as his clemency is rejected by the president

HOPES of a pardon from Indonesia’s new president have been dashed for the Bali Nine’s Andrew Chan. Like Myuran Sukumaran, he now faces the firing squad.

Joko Widodo officially rejected Chan’s plea for clemency this afternoon, effectively signing his death warrant and clearing the way for his execution.

The move is in keeping with his hardline stance against drug offenders — six traffickers were executed on Sunday.

A letter, rejecting clemency and signed by President Widodo on January 17, has been delivered to the jail and the Denpasar District Court this afternoon.

“The Presidential decree stated that the clemency plea of Andrew Chan was rejected,” Denpasar District Court head, Hasolan Sianturi said this afternoon.

Tony Tribagus Spontana, the Attorney General spokesman, said: “The Attorney General’s office has received presidential decree No. 9/G 2015 that was signed in January 17, 2015, that rejects clemency plea of death convicted of drug case Andrew Chan”.

“About the execution, as of now, the attorney general is yet to determine the schedule and place for execution,” he said.
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http://www.news.com.au/world/asia/b...by-the-president/story-fnh81fz8-1227193597745
 
A day with Myuran Sukumaran, a remarkable artist who won't give up in the face of bleak destiny

Myu is absolutely devastated. He's describing the emotion of receiving a copy of the letter that details the failure of his final clemency bid and opens up the next confronting chapter in his young life. We're both crying and I'm almost completely lost for words. There is nothing in my experience that empowers me to console this big, quiet man.

Then Myu abruptly stops the conversation and begins another. He asks me if he should pay attention to the description of an artist making the very first mark of a new painting in the dead centre of a blank canvas, as detailed in The Man With the Blue Scarf. I admit that I haven't yet read Martin Gayford's acclaimed biography of British figurative painter Lucian Freud. The conversation then flows more easily as Myu returns to his steadfast hunger for painting tips, techniques and art history.

I first visited Myuran Sukumaran in early 2012 in his Kerobokan prison art studio. He had written to me asking for advice on materials for "making paint thick". I guessed that his supporters had innocently searched the internet for "artist using thick paint" in Australia and my name had bleeped onto a screen. So a member of the Mercy campaign, Mary Farrow handed me a letter he'd written and I was so moved by his honest and incisive questions that I asked him if I could visit and give him a lesson.

When I walked through the concrete entrance checkpoint of the prison I was met by a green courtyard, bougainvillea-covered tennis court and a sea of potted bonsais. Myu was there, shy and quiet, but his huge grin erupted when I announced in front of the warden that I was there to break Myuran out.

Myu then walked me to his art rooms and nonchalantly explained that to eat in the prison, inmates needed $2.50 a day. The average daily wage in Bali was the equivalent of $4 per day and so the bonsai plants that lined the quadrangle were an elderly convict's means of earning enough money for food without further burdening his family. The prison warden allowed the convict's family to sell the more mature bonsais in a Balinese flower market.

Another young convict sets up every day to dry paper-thin layers of ground rice. The rice cakes dry in the sun and are sold to other convicts and prison staff. I was hungry and they looked good. Chickens run the length of the art rooms, hemmed in by flimsy wire against the massive prison wall.

Over the next 12 months the warden of Kerobokan Prison allowed Myu's creative output to be sold as well, with all the profits pumping back into the art studio. More than 40 convicts from every corner of the world meet studiously every weekday to attend art classes and the paintings that the students are willing to part with are sold in stalls in the bustling tourist markets of Bali.

The art rooms are the result of slow and methodical negotiations with Indonesian authorities by a persistent Myu. His diplomacy skills have put form to his dreams. Last year, Myu completed more than 20 works for his first solo show. Good people in Melbourne held the exhibition, the photographer Matthew Sleeth found space and words to open a show that sold every work but one, and the proceeds fed directly back to the funding of a prison art gallery. By the end of 2015, Myu will be due to finish his Bachelor of Fine Arts by correspondence through Curtin University.

Cont -

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/a-day...he-face-of-bleak-destiny-20150122-12vu79.html
 
L2R said:
chan's clemency plea was rejected.

these guys were kids when they fucked up, and they will be murdered for it. i really feel for their families.






i will never go to bali
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i too will no longer support their tourism nor local economy. not solely due to this one decision; but moreso the ongoing "elephant in the room" battle that has been going on between both australia and indonesia for a very long time now. their lack of lenience both politically ("drug crime") and under the guise of religion ("bali bombing") toward australian citizens when we are the fuel that keeps their society alive is unbalanced. they wage minor "under the table" wars on our citizens whilst they are within their shores yet we tolerate, promote and encourage spending our tourist dollars there?

the drug laws of indonesia are spelled out in black and white to australian citizens prior to travelling, and no, im not pardoning nor in support of trafficking; but agree with l2r and many others that they (mr chan and mr sukumaran) have served 10 years imprisonment in third world conditions and have both proven themselves to be reformed prisoners during that period (and lord knows after the inhumane conditions and environment that they both endured this past ten years, would both never think to re commit the same crime again). i am absolutely disgusted by the outcome of this case and hope that the australian government can somehow intervene in this final decision flippantly made by president widodo before its too late and two men lose their lives as a result. the other seven members of the bali nine have received recent pardons as has shappelle corby in all of the drama circulating her case. why must these two men be made mortal examples of indonesias war on drugs?

...kytnism...:|
 
Why Indonesia is determined to kill Bali Nine duo

President Joko Widodo could not have made a more nationalistic statement: five of the six people executed on Sunday in Indonesia’s newly resumed execution program were foreigners.
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It has made the task of saving the lives of the two condemned Australians, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, so much harder.

For Tony Abbott, who has made personal appeals to the Indonesian President, there is no big pay-off in domestic political terms in the unlikely event he or the Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, should succeed in persuading Widodo to make exceptions of Sukumaran and Chan.

The sense is that there is not overwhelming public sympathy for the two.

They may have reformed in Kerobokan Prison, but people remember their ruthless stand-over tactics threatening a group of other young Australians to strap up with 8.3kg of heroin, for which Sukumaran and Chan were sentenced to death in 2006.

The Prime Minister’s overtures to Widido are therefore a test of his most genuine convictions, because pleading for the men involves no political self-interest.

“I have always been against the death penalty,” Abbott told me in 2010 as he was making his first run against Kevin Rudd.

“I sometimes find myself thinking, though, that there are some crimes so horrific that maybe that’s the only way to adequately convey the horror of what’s been done.”

He was talking about terror, and this is where our two countries hit a difference of opinion.

Indonesia appears to believe that the prospects for rehabilitating terrorists is better than for drug runners, which explains why so many high-level participants from major terror events, from Bali 2002 onwards, are now walking free after serving relatively short terms.

Indonesian Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo said after the weekend’s executions that 40 to 50 people died each day from drugs in Indonesia. That, from the Indonesian perspective, is much higher than the cost of terror.

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http://www.news.com.au/world/asia/w...ll-bali-nine-duo/story-fnh81fz8-1227194777892
 
Bali Nine: Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran’s celebrity supporters call for mercy

A ROLL call of Aussie stars have hastily brought to life a powerful message of mercy for condemned Bali Nine duo Myarun Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.

Actors Asher Keddie and Claudia Karvan, musicians Missy Higgins and Megan Washington, and broadcasters Alan Jones and Andrew Denton are among those to respond to a rallying call from Australian war artist Ben Quilty.

Quilty has converted his Sydney studio into a makeshift command centre to produce the star-studded video of support for Chan and Sukumaran - who face almost certain death by firing squad after their clemency bids were denied by the Indonesian president.

The campaign, I Stand For Mercy which was set to go live on Friday afternoon, contains contributions from prominent Aussies expressing their heartfelt sadness at the men’s fates.

“The message is just for the boys to know there are people walking with them in this very dark time,” Quilty said.

“They have no access to any media in there (prison) but I’m sure their barristers will talk them through it.”

Quilty has been working around the clock to create the tribute for his friends since returning to Australian on Sunday after visiting them in Indonesia.

“We’ve got someone here manning the computer as videos come in constantly,” he said.

Meanwhile, Quilty is simultaneously trying to organise a public candlelit vigil and music event for his friends, who he met conduct art workshops in the jail.

The 41-year-old has recruited dozens of renowned musicians to ‘perform for clemency’ and send a message that the death penalty is unacceptable.

“It’s for Myu and Andrew — I’d do anything for those two boys,” he said.

“I want to send a strong message to the men themselves and their families that there are a lot of prominent Australians in the arts, media and all parts of our community who are on their side.

“I want the barristers to walk into that prison and tell the boys how many people are thinking of them and supporting them.”

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http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...s-call-for-mercy/story-fni0xqrc-1227195257379
 
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