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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:
gordonpym · 29/04/2015 09:54

And BoyScout, I agree 100%

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 29/04/2015 10:43

I don't think it is semantics. I think it is more than that but you are as entitled to your opinion on that as I am, I believe. Calling it "semantic nonsense" is, however, rude.

I don't agree with the death penalty in general, and I don't agree with these men having been killed by the Indonesian govt - but I also don't think you can call it murder - to call it murder suggests that these men were victims, and they weren't. They were criminals.

StUmbrageinSkelt · 29/04/2015 10:44

Others in similar situations choose not to go down the rehabilitation pathway. If you're going to bitch that they are following a script, you leave them no room to be rehabilitated.

Schapelle Corby didn't convert to Christianity or appear to have done anything towards rehabilitation and yet is out on parole in Bali. She still is convicted of smuggling drugs into Indonesia as opposed to smuggling drugs through Indonesia.

BoyScout · 29/04/2015 11:21

I'm not saying they're faking it umbrage that's going too far. But coming to religion has no downsides if you're on death row and I'd love to see statistics on how many death row prisoners convert compared to a) the general prison population and b) the general public.

I don't believe anyone should be executed for anything and that applies equally to a prisoner who's become a pastor and one who says 'fuck you all, I'm glad I did it'.

In my mind, the rehabilition is immaterial to whether they should have been executed or not. But people have been citing it as a reason.

mimishimmi · 29/04/2015 12:33

I don't think the punishment fit the crime. If they had been running around executing rivals and mules, perhaps I'd agree with the death penalty in that case. Who supplied them? They were just musclemen and from the description of the others executed, most were motivated by extreme poverty (or mental illness in one case), not a flashy lifestyle.

All that said, the amount of heroin they planned to import was enough to kill 6000 people from overdoses. I have a feeling they thought their victims would 'just' be 'poor white Aussie trash' and we do have a pretty serious problem with criminal elements in some immigrant communities adopting the same attitude. I find it a bit hard to believe that their parents didn't guess at what their dropout sons were doing... unless they were able to hide the money from previous operations very well. Still, I feel terrible for the mums - especially when one of them is the firstborn. There's something incredibly sad about that which had me in tears last night (yes, I was up at 3 to light a candle for them - either way although did hope for last minute reprieve).

ReallyTired · 29/04/2015 12:41

I feel sorry for the families as they are innocent. However Indonesia is a poor country and there are lots of people who die needlessly as a result of poverty. Drug trafficking costs lives all over the world. I can understand why Indonesia has chosen to make an example of these prisoners.

Do I agree with th death penalty - no. However. Low income countries have to make difficult decisions on whether to imprison someone for life or provide basic ante natal care to mothers and babies who have done nothing wrong.

SunnyBaudelaire · 29/04/2015 12:43

" Low income countries have to make difficult decisions on whether to imprison someone for life or provide basic ante natal care to mothers and babies who have done nothing wrong "

I am not sure that it ever comes down to such a choice, reallytired.

ReallyTired · 29/04/2015 12:57

Lots of people live in horrendous poverty in Bali. What are other countries doing to help Indonesia with its drugs problem? Perhaps if people were not so desperate there would be less of a drugs issue.

If foreign countries want Indonesia to show clemency to criminals then they need to work closely with them and try to understand where they are coming from. I don't agree with them choosing to execute these men, but being foreign should not make them above the law. The execution of an Indonesian for similar offence would not make the news.

Maybe it needs to be clearer to aircraft passengers that they risk the death penalty IF they are caught with drugs. Maybe there could be an amnesty for those who admit they have the drugs while they are in the air.

SunnyBaudelaire · 29/04/2015 13:00

" Lots of people live in horrendous poverty in Bali. "
well yes but that does not mean that their govenment has to choose between ante natal care and locking up drug smugglers. That is a complete non sequiter.

Purplepumpkins · 29/04/2015 13:12

There are ginormous signs as you enter the country stating drug smuggling equals death...I'm very sorry they have to die but they knew what they were doing when they choose to smuggle illegal drugs into a country with a death penalty for smuggling drugs.

Think of all the lives those drugs would of harmed, had they got away and the drugs made it into the country. I'm sure also had they gotten away they would still be on the streets dealing drugs..

KoalaDownUnder · 29/04/2015 13:19

They weren't smuggling drugs in, they were smuggling them out.

Indonesia would not have had to pay to keep them in prison; the Australian government offered to extradite them and imprison them here.

ReallyTired, Indonesia's economic situation has zero to do with this. Sorry, but you are lacking some really basic factual knowledge about what happened and why.

Higgle · 29/04/2015 13:23

I am totally opposed to the death penalty in any circumstances.
I can't help but think that if you go to a county where this is the penalty for what you have gone there to do then it is fairly inevitable that if you are caught this is what will happen. It is very wrong however that they should have been kept waiting and hoping for so many years. For the families I have every sympathy, I just kept thinking about what if my sons did something really stupid like that.

Coyoacan · 29/04/2015 13:55

I must admit I am shocked that the media turn heroin smugglers into the boy next door who made a foolish mistake. Is it because they are white, middle-class and entrepeurial?

yearofthegoat · 29/04/2015 13:57

For me an essential point is that the death penalty is an absolute wrong - whatever the crime

This. 1,000 times. It's the only way to reject capital punishment.

Another vote for this from me.

Bambambini · 29/04/2015 14:33

"Every time someone says they don't agree with capital punishment "because they might get the wrong person", I feel a tiny chill. Because - as this very thread shows there's always someone in the bushes to pop up with some nonsense term (currently "DNA" seems the magic word) to imply that todays justice is perfect."

Well, that's how many people feel. I feel similar and have mixed feelings about it too. I don't really care if some people who do horrible crimes suffer and die - many I think deserve suffering. But, I don't support the DP as the system is often corrupt and unfair. I don't want that kind of thing sanctioned by a government. But, individually - I don't really care about the person.

And I don't think there is anything wrong with that point of view.

however · 29/04/2015 14:58

Coyan, neither are white.

Even the prison staff supported clemency for the two men. By their accounts, they made a huge and positive difference in the rehabilitation of other prisoners. The media aren't making shit up, you know.

KoalaDownUnder · 29/04/2015 14:58

Coyoacan - neither of them were white. And both worked fairly menial jobs. I'm not sure that you'd call their backgrounds middle class, either.

I agree that they are not heroes, or innocent boys-next-door, but let's keep the facts straight.

slithytove · 29/04/2015 18:38

I think what bothers me most is the fact that Australia are so against these executions that they have pulled their ambassador and are reconsidering aid, yet the Australian police tipped off the Indonesian police.

Why not wait for them to land and arrest them?

Icimoi · 29/04/2015 18:44

Certainly if someone killed my child I would want them to die, and I would probably want it to be a slow and painful death. But the point is that that sort of decision absolutely should not be dictated by my primitive revenge reaction. Murder is wrong, whoever does it, and for a state to kill someone in cold blood is absolutely wrong.

Coyoacan · 29/04/2015 19:59

Apologies, I stand corrected.

I am very far from Australia, against capital punishment and believe that most people are capable of reforming.

I was basing myself on an interview a couple of years ago of an English woman who had been in prison in the east for heroin smuggling and she treated as a poor victim in that interview, it make my blood boil.

Again, I should have thought. At the moment two Mexican brick-makers, who seem to have been hired under false pretences, are awaiting the death penalty for being the cleaners in a drug-factory in Malaysia. They had only been in Malaysia a couple of months and the owner of the factory was let off.

igotaway · 29/04/2015 21:37

As I write, my son is upstairs, 'off his face', as the saying goes, high on heroin.
How many of you can say that? I suspect none of you.

I am standing at the bottom of the stairs listening out for him. Just so he doesn't die under my nose.
Try and imagine what that feels for ME.

I completely and totally acknowledge that it is his own choice to purchase this stuff. Without a doubt, his choice.

Do I care that these people got executed - no I don't, not one single bit.
Good riddance to them all

I don't even feel pity for the families that are related to them. I dare say they benefited from the money they made, maybe their own standard of living got better because of their sons business? THAT's what they are crying about!

'they made a huge and positive difference to the rehabilitation of other prisoners' don't take the mick please. Their 'good' behaviour was because they were saving their own necks!
These people play the system, 'oh look, I'm a good God fearing chap really' and they will play it for as long as is needed. 10 years if need be. No No No!

Disregard the fact that they are putting millions of dollars of heroin on the street for others to die, for their own benefit to make money. They care not one flying fig.

Sorry to disagree with the majority, but yes, I am glad they got executed. Tough shit
Don't do the crime etc etc etc.
And I hope they catch and execute the next lot and the next lot and the next lot.

QOD · 29/04/2015 21:51

igotaway wow you poor thing. Can't imagine the pain
This is what I thought of? My sympathy is for families like you

MalletsMallet · 29/04/2015 21:55

Having lived with a heroin addict for almost 10 years I'm with you igotaway

I can only wish you strength for tonight and every night with your son and am hoping for a miracle for him Sad

nickersinaknot · 29/04/2015 21:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.