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.

I would suggest that the drugs trade is much more barbaric than what is about to happen to these men.

Yes, it's barbaric but no, it's not more, or indeed less, barbaric.

I find the concept of the state killing someone in cold blood utterly horrific, and it's that cold blood element that really makes it so. Whatever someone has done, I cannot imagine anything worse than sitting in a prison cell knowing that in a very few short hours, minutes or seconds you are going to be taken out and put through a slow, deliberate process to kill you, and that there is nothing whatsoever you can do about it. Knowing that someone you love is going through that must be just as bad. Putting someone through that really puts the state responsible at the same level as the criminals it is killing.

They were teenagers worra, no doubt lured in by the promise of a payday from some Mr big. You think the rules don't apply to you at that age, teen arrogance at its best. Or worst in this case.

Luna- because unfortunately in society it goes;
Drug addict = victim
Drug smuggler = evil bad guy

Presumably because a drug addict mostly harms themselves through their desire to experience, escape or otherwise alter their own sphere of existence, whereas drug smugglers are usually making a business decision which is largely to their benefit. It's not as though drug addicts get a particularly easy time of it, but (prosecution aside) I know which I would rather be.

I think that I will never understand ghouls who watch this kind of thing in the news for more than perhaps a passing moment and then start threads about it in a place like this and try to dictate how the thread should proceed.

Where does it say they were teenagers? Chan was 21 and Sukumaran 24 when they were arrested.

That's fair Icimoi. Every death will be a tragedy for those experiencing it.

I was coming at it more from the numbers of dead rather than individual personal experiences; more than 60,000 people were killed in drugs wars in Mexico alone between 2006 and 2012 ( Source ), and many of those were civilians and bystanders, including young children - when I compare numbers like that against two people who chose to smuggle drugs, I'm afraid I cannot find any sympathy for them. Or indeed anyone who chooses to perpetuate this trade, which is also linked heavily with people and arms trafficking.

I am sure they are terrified. And whilst I am not rubbing my hands together with glee at the thought, it is safe to say I will not be shedding any tears for them either.

I cannot even begin to imagine the agony of the families.

Also Dojo with drug addicts there is often a background of abuse or mental health problems. Particularly with heroin which is used to self medicate by people who can't cope.

I don't think the same motivation can be found for smuggling, it's greed and money. They're targeting the most vulnerable people.

I feel terrible sad for their families.

But even sadder for the families of Leah Betts and Rachel Whitear who died taking the drugs people like them smuggled

I'm sympathetic to those prisoners who've reformed in prison BUT if they'd nor been caught they'd probably not be reformed now

Le polar bear, my mistake it's Scott rush who was 19, another member of the Bali 9. His sentence was reduced from the death penalty to life imprisonment.

I never have and never will support the death penalty. However, these people chose to traffic drugs, knowing full well the penalties. I have great sympathy for their families but ultimately they are the cause of their families distress and heartbreak. They made the wrong choice and are unfortunately paying with their lives.

I wonder if innocent people could face the DP. I've been to Indonesia and other DP countries in the region. Many of your kids might go backpacking there.

So they were 21 and 24yrs old or teenagers?

I don't agree with the death penalty, but I also don't agree with trying to minimise this crime either, by saying they thought the rules didn't apply to them.

the filipina woman who will leave behind a 6 and a 12 year old may have known the consequences of drug smuggling but she did not know she was being used as a mule. Her bag that contained the drugs was a 'gift' given to her to replace her scrappy one by the woman who claimed she had secured domestic work for her.

Bambini, there is a lot of controversy surrounding today's execution of Mary veloso for that very reason....
Also the Brazilian national being executed is a diagnosed bipolar schizophrenic.

potatoprints None of them have (arguably I guess depending on your opinion of drug dealers) murdered anyone. Any 'victims' would have sadly been victims of their own drug addiction so not really a case of 'wrong place'.

I absolutely think that their crimes should not be minimised and that drug trafficking in countries where the penalties are harsh is unbelievable naive and stupid. They should be punished for their actions as the impact of heroin trafficking does harm many, however I just can't justify even government sanctioned murder. Its totally barbaric and the situation is sad for everyone involved.

They have paid their debt to society, in my opinion. What will the death penalty achieve? It is desperately sad. And corrupt.

Well they weren't teenagers so your post about them being "lured" by the money isn't really relevant is it? I'm still wondering why you used the word unfortunately to describe drug smugglers as big bad guys...

Peoples opinions on the death penalty are also irrelevant - the fact us it U.S. well known that certain countries do have it as punishment for drug smugglers. Greed makes people take the risk of being caught.

It's not simply the drug addicts who are affected by drug pushers and smugglers though - there are any number of criminal activities which are supported by a drugs trade which causes untold misery in communities and results in the deaths of innocent people, none of whom have touched drugs.

Well let's hope none of us or our children or loved ones ever ends up at the receiving end - guilty or innocent.

I have less sympathy for guilty people who knew what they were doing and took the risk. My issue with the DP is more that systems are too corrupt to get it right every time and it never seems to be administered fairly across the board. Race, sex, money and class too often plays a part.

People in the USA are executed regularly. The executions seem to be botched. Coffins are prepared as well. Relatives say goodbye.

Is firing squad more or less barbaric than lethal injection? Or electrocution? The gas chamber?

"I feel terrible sad for their families.
But even sadder for the families of Leah Betts and Rachel Whitear who died taking the drugs people like them smuggled"

You could say that these young people took their chances as well though and it didn't pay off. Where do you draw the line of who is more to blame. Plenty of sympathy and it seems forgiveness here for addicts - what about those who truly have no choice but are the innocent ones caught up in the chaos and killing. Like the poor sods in the likes of Mexico who are living each day with the consequencies of the trade.

I know about this case. I've been following the last few days developments. The coffins and crosses have been filmed in preparation and that more than anything else sums up for me why I am against the death penalty and why right now I'm praying for mercy for all of these people.

It is wrong. Absolutely and completely wrong for a state to determine when that state will end the life of a person the state deems unfit to live. It is wrong. The clearest thing I ever read that summed this up for me is this by George Orwell

'I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path.

It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working – bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming – all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned – reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone – one mind less, one world less.'

It's as well to think too that any of us who are parents could find ourselves facing this. Anybody's child can make a bad choice. Anybody's mother can be torn from them and forced to leave them alone to die at the hands of the state. If this execution goes ahead and you think 'well fair enough' just remember that there you and yours could be one day. Just think about how desperate and panic-stricken that makes you feel and ask yourself is this really, really right?

If you go that part of the world, you should be aware of their views towards drugs. Big signs and warnings of the consequences.

Remember Bangkok Hilton. It's simple - don't smuggle drugs in a country where they execute drug smugglers.