Butt out on death penalty: Bali 9 judge

Butt out on death penalty:

"Judge Yasa said rather than interfering in Indonesia's justice system, Australia should educate its citizens about the strict drug laws in neighbouring countries, before allowing them to travel abroad."

I find this article very perplexing. Firstly, I do not think it is necessary since we have not interfered in anyone's laws. We have discussed the merits , or lack thereof, of the death penalty. That seems to be something much of the world is discussing and yes, it was brought home by the case in Singapore. He was 25. He had no previous conviciton. We did not interfere with the laws, we did everything within our legal power to try and stop him from being killed. We did the same for the lady who was going to be stoned to death in another part of the world. There are still those who support the death penalty. That is something we are resolving through our discussions.

"They said today that any attempt to influence their handling of the heroin trafficking cases would yield the same result as in Singapore with the drugs case of executed man Van Tuong Nguyen: defiance."

I do not think Singapore executed Van Tuong Nguyen to defy us. If they did , how does that make them look? They executed him because it is their law and they apply their law to everyone. What happens in Indonesia will be what happens in Indonesia and so far we have Schapelle Corby with 15 years and Michelle Leslie who is free.

The thing we have discussed is why our people keep getting this wrong and appear to have such a cavalier attitude to the laws of other countries which we believe are well known. We are wondering what has motivated them to make such reckless decisions. We haven't had the death penalty since 1985 and as a consequence we have opinions about it. Similarly we are at our wits' end , as other countries are, as to the amount of international drug trade.

I think our politicians have been very careful to raise our point of view without contravening the rights of other countries to follow their own laws. I confess there have been some odd things through the media ...like voting whether you think someone should be hanged or not. I cannot believe that...because it is a legal matter and it does depend on the evidence as this article states. It is none the less, a very odd article. We have been watching decisions everywhere because there seems to be a whole host of things which influence decisions about what is right or wrong these days and our capacity to have a human interest in that is ...human!