The knee jerk reaction by many to the Schappelle Corby verdict and sentencing is mind boggling.
Thousands of people, who were not in court to weigh up all the evidence, have decided that justice has not been done. (Based on the evidence presented in the media I don’t believe that Schappelle is guilty either, but I recognise that that’s just my opinion based on limited details.)
I hope that a good appeal is launched and that Schappelle will be aquitted or at least returned to Australia but I think that whatever is done needs to follow correct process. There are dozens of other Australians in prisons around the world who have been charged with drug offences. I hope that justice is done in their situations as well.
To many people, the way to hit back at what they see as an unfair verdict is to punish Indonesia. They want money back that was given to help the victims of the tsunami. They want to take food from the mouths of suffering families who had nothing to do with that verdict. They refuse to buy anything that is produced in Indonesia. They are cancelling holidays to Bali and other Indonesian holiday spots. They want to punish the enitre country for what they see as a failing with the judiciary.
This seems to me to be a dangerous precendent.
I only hope that other countries don’t follow this pattern. If they do, there are dozens of countries that will be looking to punish Australia for unfairly locking up their citizens in detention centres.
What was that about removing the log from your eye before removing the speck from your brother’s?
Posted by Rodney Olsen
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spot on Rod. In fact, there is more evidence to support locking up Corby than 99% of the asylum seekers…in fact, refugee is a legal status and the refugees we have detained should by rights be allowed to be a part of our community whilst their applications are being processed, not locked up as criminals because they haven’t broken any laws….Yet one person caught with drugs and locked up for what is a lenient sentence in that country causes outrage…..
i believe racism is alive and well in australia…..
I agree with you Rodney. Those who are saying we should punish Indonesia or ask for money back or stop giving to them are stupid and misguided. The knee-jerk racist response of some Australians has appalled me. I hate the culture of blame we have in this country (eg blame the Indonesians, blame John Howard?!? etc etc etc – it makes me sick) – any time anything goes wrong people instantly start looking for targets to blame.
Having said all that I can understand why many people may choose not to travel to Bali any more. Many people will not take the risk of travelling to a country where it is perceived that the justice system is flawed and can imprison a possibly innocent person for 20 years for what is actually a realtively minor crime anyway, while a bombing plotter gets only 2 years. Right or wrong, I don’t think it is unreasonable of people to think that way when planning their trips. I’ve never been to Bali myself, and all this makes me even less keen on going there.
But blaming and punishing innocent Indonesians is not on.
Thanks for your comments guys.
It probably should be pointed out that the bombing plotter who has only been given 2 years was not convicted of such while the three men who have been convicted and found guilty of being involved in the Bali bombing have been given the death penalty.
I’m certainly with you Baggas. I’ve never had the desire to visit Bali and I’m now even less interested. Not because I want to punish the Balinese, but because I don’t find it to be a place of interest.
Don’t get me started…I feel for Schappelle an injustice appears to have occured and whether or not there are other injustices occuring elsewhere.
The judge has never aquitted anyone in the 500 or so trials that he has presided over – probability is that there is something wrong with a justice system that asserts that you are guilty until proven innocent.
Ps. I believe you spoke to Mrs Lionfish today! 🙂
I was just thinking about this today — what would the reaction from Australia have been had the nationalities been reversed (i.e. an indonesian facing court in Australia on similar charges)? I suspect the public reaction may have been somewhat different.
I think Baggas is spot on here. By all means exercise prudence if choosing a holiday destination with a questionable justice system, but there is no justification in punishing people who had no involvement in this (which is about all the boycotts will do).
However, I seriously suspect that none of the planned boycotts will last very long. In a couple of weeks, the media circus will move onto something else.
As I’ve said on my blog, I agree with boycotting Bali for a while. If you’re going to make a statement showing your disagreement, as an ordinary Aussie citizen there are only a limited amount of ways you can do this. On top of that, I wouldn’t like to be travelling to a place with a reputation for this kind of incident occurring, at least not until things have been fixed a bit. I wouldn’t agree with doing this permanently though, I think it should be an organised protest of sorts (which would be very difficult to organise).