To ask if you know about the executions taking place today?

[kewtogetin]

I have been following the case of the 'Bali 9' for years but it seems today is the end of the road for Andrew chan and myuran sukumaran. They are due to be executed at 5pm UK time.
I have just watched their families leaving the jail for the last time after saying their final goodbyes. It was heartbreaking. This is not really a post about the rights and wrongs of the death penalty (although I am massively against) but I can't help feeling this is more of a punishment for the families than for those who committed the crime.
I believe death isn't the punishment but fear. Saying goodbye to your children/parents etc, being marched through the rain forest, tied to a wooden stake with a hood over your head and then shot through the heart. It's just barbaric.....
What do you think? And no 'if you can't do the time don't do the crime' spouters please. Two men (actually 2 of 11 I believe) will die today but glorying in it is disrespectful at best.

Does executing drug mules actually any affect on drugs trafficking? It has to remembered that drugs cause lots of deaths in the third world as well as the UK. There are the victims of crime who suffer when addicts are desperate for money. What about babies fighting for life in neonatal intensive care because there mothers are addicts. Maybe we should save our pity for little old ladies who are mugged or murdered by druggies. Maybe we should think about young child who are pimped out by their parents.

A deterrent only works if some unlucky sod is made an example of. I don't agree with the death penalty, but I can empathise with Indonesia.

The two Australians were not mules. They were gang leaders. That's why they got the death sentence, and the other 7 got life imprisonment. Don't try and downplay their role here.

I agree that there should be more effort put into tracking down and removing the big cartel bosses, the suppliers etc. - but that doesn't detract from the role of these two.

Igot and Mallets - so sorry for you both, and completely understand your points of view.

The state organised taking of life is one of the most horrific and chilling things I can think of. Organised, sanctioned, legal cold blooded murder.

I cannot fathom how anyone can ever think it is in any way ever acceptable or justifiable to end someone's life as part of the governing of people. How can justice ever prevail if the justice system stoops lower than the criminals.

The preparing of the coffins and painting a pre-ordained date and their name on them, it's like a nightmare come to life.

I'm sorry about your son, Igot.

Really, I'll say it again. The death penalty isn't a deterrent.

I have enough sympathy fore everyone.

The death penalty has no place in civilised society - it is utterly barbaric and the idea of any of the men who were executed waiting their turn whilst others were killed chills me. The fact that it is proven to be no deterrent - in fact the contrary:criminal behavior increases when the stakes are higher - makes it pointlessly tragic.

In terms of who to "feel sorry for" emotions are not finite - it is perfectly possible to feel great sadness for both those executed and those whose lives are destroyed by drugs.

Was just going to post that as far as I understood it, the death penalty has been proven not to work as a deterrent, but I see that's been covered very recently.

It really is pointless to say 'don't do the crime if you can't do the time' if it doesn't work as a deterrent (and they're not doing 'time', but we'll ignore that). Surely that much is obvious. We don't generally shoot people because they deserve it for a crime, we do it to deter others. And if we know it doesn't deter others, what excuse is there then?

I'm against the death penalty, but I thoroughly sympathise with Igot. I've seem so much suffering caused by heroin, between friends and neighbours, I'm sure I would have happily pulled the trigger in the firing squad. Not as a deterent, because it doesn't work like that.

The irony is, they caught them, and via their prison system,rehabilitated some of them to the point where they were providing education and counsel to other inmates, and turned others (white and middle class btw) into drug addicts. Because the easiest place to get heroin is in jail in Indonesia.

Then they killed the rehabilitated ones, thereby preventing them from continuing to rehabilitate anyone else.

One of the men they executed (a Brazillian man) was mentally ill, and according to reports had no idea what was happening until they tied him to the post.

Not exactly a hallmark of a well oiled justice system.

Indonesia has over 100 of its citizens on death row in other countries. They have been , and continue to, advocate for clemency for them.

I am 100% against the death penalty under any circumstances.

I've worked in MH services with offenders that would have probably been executed in other countries.

I've worked with many heroin addicts. The damage done can't be argued. The destruction of lives can't be argued. But heroin isn't a party drug - people don't have a great laugh and a party with their mates. It numbs everything. It is the best escape from physical or emotional pain that there is.

Every heroin addict I've known has been numbing some kind of intense pain. It's that that needs to be dealt with. If it wasn't heroin it would be something else. We need to look at why someone is escaping from their reality. We need to increase availability of decent psychological help.

We need to stop heroin users from being excluded from that help (many community psychological services won't work with someone who is in active addiction or on a subutex script).

You can execute or incarcerate as many people as you like. The demand will still be there and there will be more dealers and mules to take their place.

We will get nowhere in 'the war' until we start to look at why so many people want to use a substance that essentially leaves them insensible.

It is not just the addictive properties at first, it is the feeling it gives. The sense of peace and comfort for people that are struggling to find it in their own reality.

Until we want to look at why people want it we won't get anywhere. As long as people want it, it will be supplied and we will go along with the laws that say the suppliers are scum and should be punished. It's easier to blame those avaricious bastards then to look at why they're able to make so much money from misery.

We'd like to think the misery wouldn't exist if it wasn't for them. I think it would but in a different way. But it would still be there.

I have the greatest sympathy for those people who are dealing with the pain and scourge of addiction in their families and understand your longing to exterminate the dealers, mules and kingpins.
I do think that it was a waste to kill these two men. I believe their reform was genuine. By all accounts they died bravely and with dignity and until the end were comforting and supporting the others being executed with them.
Indonesia is completely corrupt. The original judge asked for a bribe to take the death penalty off the table. The prison was openly running a meth lab. There is little respect for the rule of law. The indon president has decided to look like a tough guy domestically by sticking it to the Australians. At every point the process was unnecessarily cruel, including the chief of police taking selfies with the men in shackles on the plane, delaying the pastors coming to spend the last hours with the men and making their families walk through completely chaotic crowds on the last day.I pity the poor people who live under this regime - I hope it does not affect our aid allocation but fear it might.