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

Former heroin addict Kate Holden says Chan and Sukumaran deserve a second chance

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Author Kate Holden is a former prostitute who has written candidly about her sex life in two books. Source: News Limited
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FORMER heroin-addicted prostitute Kate Holden has spent plenty of time contemplating death.

Now a celebrated author and relishing her second chance at life Kate writes for News.com.au why Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran deserve a new horizon.

“I suppose if my five years of heroin addiction had killed me, I might as well have been executed. Dead is dead.

A life chopped short is as devastating whether it happens silently in a lounge room, or in front of a firing squad in Indonesia.

My family dreaded my death as the families of convicted heroin smuggling masterminds Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran dread theirs.

For any young life to end is horrific; for that tragedy to come from a mistake is always haunting.

Because mistakes are part of life, and they can be terrible, but we also learn from mistakes, even better than we learn from successes.

A mistake may be the best gift we can get — that is, if we’re allowed to go on with the lesson.

There isn’t a soul on this planet who hasn’t made errors — serious errors — in their youth.

Young people’s brains are unfinished, their owners so easily led into stupidity.

Whether it’s getting into a car with a drunk friend, or taking a dare to stay up for three days, dive into a dark river or kiss your girlfriend’s sister, young people will inevitably find something to test themselves with, terrifying, thoughtless or simply silly.

They are hungry for newness, suckers for excitement, and desperate to prove themselves special and brave.

Their reasoning is incomplete, and everything seems urgent. For a young person, doing something dangerous and forbidden is the quickest way to show themselves that they are growing up, just as everyone is always telling them they should.

That’s probably one of the main reasons I walked into a room when I was 24 and offered my arm to a syringe full of heroin. I knew it was stupid but somehow it seemed the right — even the best — idea at the time.

I’d show how courageous I was to do something that scared me so much. Five years of exhaustion, danger, unhappiness, endless work and my family’s constant horror later, I thought otherwise.

There were moments when I was utterly alone, cold, hopeless and frightened; when I needed help but was despised by everyone in society; when I didn’t care if I died.

If I had, I wonder what might have been said at my funeral, when the reality of addiction might have been too complicated to explain, and mourners might have quietly thought I had brought all my troubles upon myself.

There might even have been some who told themselves I was better off ‘at peace’, all my troubles ended and everyone free to go on with their lives.

But I didn’t die, and I changed my life around.

The difference between my experience and that of a quadriplegic ex-hoon, a teenage boy getting an incurable sexually transmitted disease, or a young woman facing jail, is that I was able to get off heroin and book myself a second chance.

I have been grateful for it every day in the fifteen years since then. I got to pay back debts, see my family’s worry and anguish smooth from their faces and be replaced by joy and pride.

I went on to forge a life so happy and productive that the ordeals of my drug years seem like a terrible dream.

Now I often give talks to audiences which include people in miseries that seem hopeless, and they tell me, to my humility, that examples such as mine are a help to them.

Cont -

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/re...-a-second-chance/story-fnq2o7dd-1227201615031
 
Im a quarter Aussie and my relatives were transported.. visited there once it was fantastic. Im not really down with self righteous people who try and judge a land and its people on such ancient history and hog wash.

All one has to do is look at history to see the biggest criminals are usually those in power. England and London were over populated and the "royals" wanted another colony so they rounded up the poor and judged them criminals and forced them to populate their empire.

Hundreds of years later a judgmental Canadian is using this to try and degrade one of the best people and countries on the planet.

Don't worry spring is coming Birc0014, but no spring is coming for the people this country is slaughtering. Way to stick up for a great cause.
 
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England and London were over populated and the "royals" wanted another colony so they rounded up the poor and judged them criminals and forced them to populate their empire.
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So they decided not to transport the rapist and murderers?
 
Lawyers ‘confident’ of saving the lives of Bali Nine duo Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan

LAWYERS for the condemned Bali Nine duo Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan have officially lodged an application for a judicial review of their case and say they are “pretty confident” of saving the men’s lives.

In a small victory, the lawyers managed to have the Denpasar District Court officials come to Kerobokan jail today to register the judicial review rather than insisting on the prisoners coming to the court.

As he left the jail today, Court clerk Ketut Sulendra said they had received all the judicial review documents and the signatures of the two Australians.

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Mr Sulendra said the application for the judicial review would now be studied. He would not comment on the review would be accepted or refused by the court.

Earlier the Justice Ministry had said Chan and Sukumaran could not be brought to the court to sign the necessary paperwork for security reasons and the application appeared doomed before it got off the ground.

There is, however, still no certainty that it will make any difference to their fate with officials saying that the two men have already exhausted and lost their one chance at a judicial review or extraordinary appeal against the death penalty.

Indonesia’s Constitutional Court recently ruled that more than judicial review, known as a PK, should be allowed if there is new evidence.

However, the Supreme Court countered by issuing a letter that banned more than one appeal. The Government has said it will soon make a new regulation that only one appeal is allowed but has yet to do so.

Early today the men’s Indonesian lawyer, Todung Mulya Lubis, along with their Australian barrister, Julian McMahon, arrived at the jail to assist their clients in lodging the documents.

As he went in, Mr Lubis told the media that his team was “pretty confident” that appeal would succeed and the men would be spared the firing squad.

Cont-

http://www.news.com.au/world/asia/l...-and-andrew-chan/story-fnh81fz8-1227202291970
 
poledriver said:
Lawyers ‘confident’ of saving the lives of Bali Nine duo Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan

LAWYERS for the condemned Bali Nine duo Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan have officially lodged an application for a judicial review of their case and say they are “pretty confident” of saving the men’s lives.

In a small victory, the lawyers managed to have the Denpasar District Court officials come to Kerobokan jail today to register the judicial review rather than insisting on the prisoners coming to the court.

As he left the jail today, Court clerk Ketut Sulendra said they had received all the judicial review documents and the signatures of the two Australians.

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Mr Sulendra said the application for the judicial review would now be studied. He would not comment on the review would be accepted or refused by the court.

Earlier the Justice Ministry had said Chan and Sukumaran could not be brought to the court to sign the necessary paperwork for security reasons and the application appeared doomed before it got off the ground.

There is, however, still no certainty that it will make any difference to their fate with officials saying that the two men have already exhausted and lost their one chance at a judicial review or extraordinary appeal against the death penalty.

Indonesia’s Constitutional Court recently ruled that more than judicial review, known as a PK, should be allowed if there is new evidence.

However, the Supreme Court countered by issuing a letter that banned more than one appeal. The Government has said it will soon make a new regulation that only one appeal is allowed but has yet to do so.

Early today the men’s Indonesian lawyer, Todung Mulya Lubis, along with their Australian barrister, Julian McMahon, arrived at the jail to assist their clients in lodging the documents.

As he went in, Mr Lubis told the media that his team was “pretty confident” that appeal would succeed and the men would be spared the firing squad.

Cont-

http://www.news.com.au/world/asia/l...-and-andrew-chan/story-fnh81fz8-1227202291970
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Im not very confident after seeing the interview with the Indonesian president. It seems like the political winds are blowing against them unless the withdrawal of the Brazilian and Dutch ambassadors after the execution of there citizen really did have an effect. I will say that the combination of the Corby case, these men and the guy arrested for weed the other day could be having an effect on there tourism industry. I really feel like hitting there very profitable foreign tourism industry is the only way these laws will be changed to something more rational.
 
Bali Nine execution: What happens next if the judicial review fails

MYURAN Sukumaran tries to make his mother laugh. He is painting her portrait.

As he studies her face and replicates it on the canvas in front of him, he and his siblings talk and try to laugh about their childhood, telling their mother funny stories from the days when they were innocent little kids.

He is trying desperately to be funny and to remove some of the stress lines that have etched into Raji Sukumaran’s face in the past decade.

He wants this to be a happy visit. When his family arrived one week ago Myuran told them he was being selfish and that he wanted this to be a happy and fun visit.

He didn’t want them sitting around, crying and being miserable. And he wanted his Mum to see him doing what he loves — painting.

This week, with the shadow of death hanging over him, Sukumaran has started painting a self-portrait, plus portraits of his mother and younger sister Brintha.

Elsewhere in Kerobokan prison, Andrew Chan is comforting and praying with a fellow Christian prisoner. The man’s arm is paralysed from a stroke and jail is not easy for him.

Chan too is under the shadow of death but decides the man needs help and support.

Chan too is trying to make his mother laugh. It is the first time he has seen her in years.

For the past week Raji Sukumaran and Helen Chan have made a daily vigil to Kerobokan jail in Bali.

The two women are not close but theirs is a pain only they can fathom — living in constant fear that their beloved sons could soon be wrenched from them and shot dead by a firing squad.

Broken-hearted at the thought of losing her firstborn, Raji Sukumaran recently broke down as she told News Corp Australia that she wishes they would kill her instead.

“I don’t want to live like this. I wish they (would) kill me first. He doesn’t deserve to die. He did something really foolish 10 years ago and he apologised, he said he is sorry and he said that he will never go back to this.

He helped so many people on drugs, he is trying to rehabilitate a lot of people there (in jail) … my son is so young, he is loving and caring and rehabilitated and they want to take him out and kill him, it’s not fair.”

She collapses, head in her hands, at the thought of her son and Andrew Chan, terrified, being lead out into a dark night, tied up, their hearts marked with a reflector and, at the count of three, shot dead by police.

Cont -

http://www.news.com.au/world/bali-n...ial-review-fails/story-fndir2ev-1227202845145
 
Indonesian judge says Bali Nine duo shouldn’t be shot because the death penalty doesn’t work

A LAWYER for Bali Nine duo Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran says he was caught off guard and “disturbed” at reports they will be killed in next round of executions.

Speaking on ABC TV’s 7.30 last night, lawyer Julian McMahon said he doesn’t know whether Chan and Sukumaran are aware of the development.

Mr McMahon said he had only found out that Chan and Sukumaran would be “among the next batch of people to be part of a mass execution or part of an execution” through media reports.

And he said it was “unknown” whether the executions will happen this month.

“Six people were taken out and shot about 10 days ago and now we’re told a whole lot more are going to be taken out and shot soon,” Mr McMahon told 7.30 last night.

When asked about Chan and Sukumaran’s mental and physical conditions, Mr McMahon said: “Certainly as well as can be expected, in so far as they are doing each day what they’ve been doing for years, which is helping other Indonesian prisoners”.

“They’re doing their job as they would see it each day and that keeps them in good enough spirits,” Mr McMahon said on ABC TV.

“On the other hand, they’ve got a dreadfully sad family environment there.”

Cont -

http://www.news.com.au/world/asia/i...alty-doesnt-work/story-fnh81fz8-1227205505525
 
Bali Nine executions: Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran’s appeal for judicial review rejected

THE Bali Nine mastermind’s hopes for a legal review of their executions have been dashed with a Bali court today rejecting their appeal, moving them one step closer to the firing squad.

The Denpasar District Court announced late today that the judicial review applications lodged by Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan had been rejected.

The court’s spokesman, Hasoloan Sianturi, said the application by the two Australians did not fulfil the requirement to have new evidence.

“The second PK plea of the death convict, Andrew Chan, cannot be accepted and the PK document is not sent to the Supreme Court. The same goes also for the documents of the PK of Myuran Sukumaran,`” Mr Sianturi told reporters late today.

“The PK does not fulfil the formal requirement. There is no novum or new evidence that is exposed by the convicts on their PK plea,” he said.

All verdicts and appeals in the cases of Chan an Sukumaran had been examined before reaching the decision, he said.

The rejection letter, which is five pages long, will be delivered to Chan and Sukumaran on Thursday.

Lawyers for the condemned Sydney duo had hoped the last ditch bid to seek an extraordinary appeal or a PK for a review of their death sentences would help save them from the firing squad.

Cont -

http://www.news.com.au/world/asia/b...-review-rejected/story-fnh81fz8-1227208267124
 
Bali Nine executions: Does the death penalty stop crime?

THE day is imminent.

They will be taken from their beds under cover of darkness, escorted to a secluded field, strapped to a wooden cross and shot to death.

Yesterday Bali Nine death row inmates Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaranr learned their final judicial review had been rejected. Their fate is now sealed.

All reports suggest that the two Australians — who were convicted for their part in a plot to smuggle more than 8kg of heroin from Indonesia to Australia — are repentant for their crimes and are now reformed.

Yet, they are marked to be executed by firing squad with the next batch of criminals.

Given that they have evidently learnt from their mistakes and turned their lives around, why are they being killed at all?

Indonesian law expert Professor Tim Lindsey has shed light on the science behind the death penalty today and says the research is conclusive: There is next to no evidence anywhere in the world that the death penalty effectively deters crime of any kind.

“The overwhelming evidence around the world is that imposing the death penalty has very little effect on the extent to which a crime was committed,” Prof Lindsey, of the University of Melbourne, said.

“It doesn’t act as an effective disincentive in any case. That’s been proven in locations around the world. It doesn’t have any discernible impact on stopping those crimes occurring, which is the tragedy of the whole thing.”

Prof Lindsey said use of the death penalty had more to do with politics than any real desire to reduce crime.

He said the fact that because death penalty determinations were shared between the courts and law makers, they “always became extremely political”.

“Drug offenders are seen as mass murderers, along with terrorists … You could say most Indonesians certainly support the death penalty for those offences. A small minority are uncomfortable,” Prof Lindsey said.

Psychologist Jeffrey Pfeifer, of Swinburne University, said the US’s appetite for capital punishment excused other countries for continuing the practice.

“All empirical evidence indicates it’s not a deterrent … but there’s a split between the hard science and the political spin,” he said.

“One of the things that strikes me is the lack of attention placed on the US system, where death occurs almost weekly, if not daily, in that country but it seems to me that it flies under the radar.”


Cont -

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/re...nalty-stop-crime/story-fnq2o7dd-1227208941061
 
One Thousand Words said:
Why does it have to be a deterrent? Why can't it simply be a punishment for crimes considered serious?
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The point is that the threat of punishment ought deter people from committing them in the first place.

Of course we know that:

A) some people will commit crimes regardless of punishment

B) people seldom consider the punishment before committing a crime (crims aren't checking their figures to ensure a healthy ROI to compensate for the calculate risks they take)

C) criminal markets value to punishment, and adjust profits accordingly, and the price is ultimately paid by the user, so junkies compensate dealers for the risks they take, and often resort to ancillary crime to pay the high price, thus creating the harm to society because of prohibition.

Rather than....

"I might die if I smuggle heroin, therefore I will not" becomes.... "I might die if I smuggle heroin, so if I am successful, I am gonna charge a huge markup".
 
Three excuses for the Bali nine death penalty - and why they're all sickeningly wrong

"I'm not in favour of the death penalty, but, you know, I can see why people think they deserve it." So goes the hypocritical sentiment echoing across Australia when conversation turns to Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

Somehow it has become fashionable to believe that these two young men, aged 31 and 33, deserve their fate, with a dubious poll even apparently showing the majority of people support their impending murder. All grist to the mill for pundits who have come out to call for their deaths.

When it happens, bullets will rip through their flesh, slashing their blood vessels and causing massive haemorrhages. If they are lucky, it will be quick, this process of bleeding to death.

But perhaps the bullets will miss their vital organs and it will be slow, and painful.

We kill animals this way, too, by letting them bleed out. But at least we give cows the reprieve of stunning them first.

Yet for Chan and Sukumaran, some are willing to throw all morality and good sense on the bonfire of tabloid bloodlust, and replace it with half-thought arguments and self-satisfied justifications.

They tend to go along three lines:

Indonesia has a "right" to enforce its own laws.

Well, yes, it does, but that doesn't mean we should support those laws.

If a law is unjust, why would we agree with its enforcement, particularly when it involves the death penalty?

When women are sentenced to be stoned to death overseas you don't hear people saying "well, she knew that was the law when she had sex, and that country has a right to enforce its laws".

No, we say it's an immoral act - and we applaud people who fight against it. We are shocked by how much the punishment exceeds the "crime", and we are sickened by the brutality of a state that thinks it has the right to take a life, to torture. The vast public outpouring for Australian journalist Peter Greste, convicted for the laughable crime of "spreading false news", shows just how willing we are to reject another country's unjust laws.

Secondly, they say "they were drug dealers, and drugs kill people, too".

Well, I didn't realise we were reverting back to the days of eye-for-an-eye punishments - a concept first introduced in Babylonian times - but if we have, let's not be inconsistent about it.

How about introducing the death penalty for drunk drivers, or tobacco industry executives?

After all, in the latter case we have numerous people who knew, for decades, their product was deadly for one in two of the people who use it (making it even more deadly than heroin).

Some companies profited for years while they hid evidence, lied to the public and influenced governments, and now are continuing their deadly behaviour in developing countries.

Of course, it would be barbaric to see the chief executives of these companies taken to an island off the coast somewhere and shot.

But for some reason we don't think the same thing about Chan and Sukumaran, who have been personally responsible for zero deaths.

Finally, the third argument goes, "Chan and Sukumaran knew what they were getting into, so why should we care about them?"

One former newspaper editor even argued it was wrong for people to be focusing on Chan and Sukumaran when there are so many innocents awaiting the death penalty everywhere. But it's not unusual for Australians - and our media - to care more about what's happening to other Australians abroad, no matter what the issue.

But drug importers are easy targets to criticise in columns. They don't seem like us, these young Australian men, and what they did seems unimaginably stupid. It's easy to make harsh judgements about a decision we would never have made ourselves - even easier to take the moral high ground from a drug-dealer. (All the while conveniently ignoring the fact that there were other people who knew what they were doing, too, namely the Australian Federal Police who let them go to their deaths.)

Perhaps all this is just a way of safely living out our most primitive revenge fantasies?

After all, this way we get to keep our moral high ground about capital punishment, insisting that we are still not in favour of it. But we can't help it if those brutal Indonesians like giving out cruel punishments, so out of "respect" to their culture we'll support them. Well, how about instead we respect them by treating them as our moral equals, who are just as capable of rejecting the death penalty as us?

We should never support the death penalty, which is not a deterrent and only serves to allow governments to enforce a most brutal, unjust, irrational "justice" - generally against those who have the least resources and ability to defend themselves.

When Chan and Sukumaran die I will feel for them. I will think of their grieving families, of their brutal, bloody deaths and just the sickening waste of it all. And I hope those Australians safely on their moral high-ground will pause for just a moment, and think about just what it is they have been advocating for.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/three...re-all-sickeningly-wrong-20150205-135yeh.html
 
harmacologist said:
The point is that the threat of punishment ought deter people from committing them in the first place.

Of course we know that:

A) some people will commit crimes regardless of punishment

B) people seldom consider the punishment before committing a crime (crims aren't checking their figures to ensure a healthy ROI to compensate for the calculate risks they take)

C) criminal markets value to punishment, and adjust profits accordingly, and the price is ultimately paid by the user, so junkies compensate dealers for the risks they take, and often resort to ancillary crime to pay the high price, thus creating the harm to society because of prohibition.

Rather than....

"I might die if I smuggle heroin, therefore I will not" becomes.... "I might die if I smuggle heroin, so if I am successful, I am gonna charge a huge markup".
Click to expand...

I can tell my kids not to do something, and they know by my angry voice that I am unhappy. If I am fierce enough I know they won't do it again. It doesn't stop be smacking them as punishment though, there still has to be consequences.
 
Piss poor water boarding effort.

Reality is I actually punish my kids with push ups and sit ups. There is no surprise that my daughter was a black belt at 11.
 
don't mind busty, he's just the douchebag he can't help being.

retributive justice is an abomination. capital punishment is not real justice, and they belong in the dark ages.

corporal punishment on children is lazy, stupid parenting. it teaches kids that violence solves problems. people often forget that kids learn not from what they are told, but from the behaviour they witness.
 
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