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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

237 replies

kewtogetin · 28/04/2015 14:08

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.

OP posts:
londonrach · 28/04/2015 17:42

Can someone explain the bali 9 to me. Feel like ive been under a stone or mars as tbh ever heard of them.

OrlandoWoolf · 28/04/2015 17:43

All that said, if these defendants knowingly ran the risk of a death sentence for drug profits then, odd as it may sound, they are in a way complicit in what their families are now suffering

Exactly. Same as for anyone who commits a crime and faces the consequences. The consequences affect the family as well.

KoalaDownUnder · 28/04/2015 17:44

I agree with Northernlurker 100%.

Tanith · 28/04/2015 17:47

Orlando, there is evidence that one of the 9 was duped. She is a poor Filipina mother who thought she was travelling to a job.

londonrach · 28/04/2015 17:48

In dm these men are drug dealers, smugglers. Ive seen the damage these men do! I feel for the families particularly the mothersbut doesnt lesson the damage these men do to other mothers children.

Northernlurker · 28/04/2015 17:49

Londonrach - the Bali 9 is the description of a drug smuggling ring. The 'ringleaders' are two of those being executed today, starting in around 11 minutes as I type but 7 others convicted of drug crimes are also due to die tonight. The rest of the Bali 9 are in prison.

Link here

GoStraightGoStraight · 28/04/2015 17:50

Kewtogetin my son is in Australia now and is saving up to go travelling. of course he'll start off in Bali as all Aussie kids do, and and it terrifies me to think that the rite of passage of doing that whole getting stoned on the beach at a full moon party could turn into every parents' worst nightmare. They are stupid at that age, think they are invincible, start taking things for granted, getting a bit too cocky and comfortable with the risks, get duped or set up by someone and the next thing you know - Bam! Midnight Express territory. It's giving me nightmares already and he hasn't gone anywhere yet. Confused

SanityClause · 28/04/2015 17:51

I absolutely agree that the death penalty is barbaric.

Could I draw people's attention to the case of Mary Jane Veloso, a Philippines national, who is to be executed in Indonesia.

She was a maid in Dubai, and left her job, due to attempted rape by her employer. She then thought she had found a job in Malaysia through family contacts, and was on her way there. At all times, she believed she was going to her new job as a maid. She was given a suitcase to take to her new employer, which (surprise, surprise!) contained drugs.

Please sign the petition on Change.org about her.

WendyTorrance · 28/04/2015 17:56

Sanity I signed the petition yesterday. Poor woman. Poor kids.

QOD · 28/04/2015 17:58

*Bambambini

"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 said the families of ... not the addicts.

My own opinion.
I can't quite comprehend how those sentenced to death feel. Disbelief? Hope? Fear of the unknown? I can't get my head round it. I kind of vaguely agree with the death penalty in a "it'll never be reintroduced in the UK anyway" kind of way for those crimes that are irrefutable by means of DNA. Like Roy Whiting. But I don't think I do agree with it for other more indirect crimes .... but it's the law in the country they committed the crime in ..

LeBearPolar · 28/04/2015 17:58

It suits some of you to describe this as a simple issue because then you don't really have to think about the barbarism and the terror and the wrongness that is capital punishment.

Yes: when all else fails, patronise those who don't agree with you. Just because the issue is simple - this men are being executed for a crime which is punishable by death in the country in which they committed it - doesn't mean that we are not fully alert to the complex moral issues surrounding the death penalty. But it suits you not to recognise that because then you would have to get off your moral high horse where you ironically fail to recognise that you too are presenting it as a simple issue: capital punishment is wrong.

QOD · 28/04/2015 18:00

Ugh sorry miss bolded

Bambambini

"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 said the families of ... not the addicts.
My own opinion.
I can't quite comprehend how those sentenced to death feel. Disbelief? Hope? Fear of the unknown? I can't get my head round it. I kind of vaguely agree with the death penalty in a "it'll never be reintroduced in the UK anyway" kind of way for those crimes that are irrefutable by means of DNA. Like Roy Whiting. But I don't think I do agree with it for other more indirect crimes .... but it's the law in the country they committed the crime in ..

QOD · 28/04/2015 18:02

Oh I'm all muddled now bambanbini sorry!

imip · 28/04/2015 18:09

I do know about it, I'm Australian and have been following it especially today.

I've always been opposed to the death penalty. When I was a teenager, I was a member of Amnesty and used to spend a lot of time writing letters to politicians across the world opposing the death penalty and supporting prisons of conscience.

There's a funny hypocrisy going on now though, where my Australian friends are saying that they won't travel to Bali etc due to this. They will probably still travel to America, some live in China. It's a shame that they don't realise that the death penalty exists in these countries too!

I'm old enough to remember Barlow and Chambers being hung. Perhaps this case being so in the media will highlight to the next generation the craziness of the death penalty.

Northernlurker · 28/04/2015 18:09

It IS wrong. How can anybody think what's happening right now, not just in Indonesia, but across the world is reasonable? The disclaiming of responsibility is terrifying and entirely based on a simple proposition - crime = death.

Agreeing that capital punishment is wrong and that therefore other ways to protect society and rehabilitate offenders must found is a more complex response.

PiperIsTerrysChoclateOrange · 28/04/2015 18:30

I want to know why any one would apply for a job in which involves killing people.

I think the same for the army who go to war and kill the bad guy.

What is the difference.

TSSDNCOP · 28/04/2015 18:35

Agree that capital punishment is wrong. Being very stupid and ignoring giant signs declaiming the penalty for smuggling still doesn't make it right that your life ends tied to a tree in front of a firing squad.

Given that it's very clear what happens to persons caught smuggling in Indonesia, why didn't the Australians let them land and arrest them at the airport.

TakeYourFinalPosition · 28/04/2015 18:39

According to The Times, 8 prisoners were executed but Mary Jane Veloso won a last minute reprieve.

If she was duped, I can only hope that is true.

workhouse · 28/04/2015 18:39

Agree Northernlurker, it is just wrong. I don't care what they have done or who they are, I would even say that about those evil bastards that raped a girl on a bus in India. It is just WRONG.

There must be another way.

WendyTorrance · 28/04/2015 18:40

TakeYourFinalPosition I really hope that that is the case.

Northernlurker · 28/04/2015 18:40

Piper - one of the characteristics of modern capital punishment is a disinclination to take responsibility for actually killing the condemned. In this case there are 9 blank rounds and 3 live rounds so nobody who fires a shot will know who has killed them.
This goes hand in hand with the sanitisation of the event. Why do you think the USA uses lethal injection? Because it's seen as being a more humane way of carrying out the most inhumane act. The UK executioners of the 19th and 20th centuries prided themselves on how effective they could be, refining the drop so that the person being hanged had their neck broken instantly. The French used the oh so efficient guillotine up until the 1970s.

AttitcusFinchIsMyFather · 28/04/2015 18:41

The Jakarta Post is reporting that eight prisoners were executed tonight, but that Mary Jane Veloso won a last-minute reprieve.

The Guardian cannot confirm this report at the moment. We will bring you more information as we have it.

WendyTorrance · 28/04/2015 18:42

The Jakarta times reports that Mary Jane Veloso was spared after the woman who recruited her gave herself up to the police.

Northernlurker · 28/04/2015 18:44

The reports of the reprieve seem quite widespread. Hope that's true but the deaths of the others are so wrong, so wrong.

OrlandoWoolf · 28/04/2015 18:47

Piper - one of the characteristics of modern capital punishment is a disinclination to take responsibility for actually killing the condemned. In this case there are 9 blank rounds and 3 live rounds so nobody who fires a shot will know who has killed them

That's been the way for ages. Deserters were shot by their colleagues in WW1.Their friends. There were a mixture of blanks and live rounds. Executioners were paid. These people have to do it.

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