On the 10th anniversary of the arrest of the Bali Nine, I have a radical idea: let’s work towards a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty.
For starters, it would save a lot of time and diplomatic effort. Just this week, two Indonesian maids were beheaded in Saudi Arabia after lengthy protests by the Indonesian government; the Norwegian prime minister, Erna Solberg, asked Indonesia to halt the executions of Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran; the Australian government continued to push for clemency for the same men; Filipinos gathered outside the Indonesian embassy in New York to protest over the planned execution of their citizen Mary Jane Veloso; and rights groups continued to argue for clemency for the mentally ill Brazilian facing execution in Indonesia alongside Chan, Sukumaran and Veloso.
In the UK, celebrities Russell Brand and musicians Mumford & Sons joined the Australian Mercy campaign – advocating clemency for Chan and Sukumaran.
The death penalty, a medieval punishment of no return, may have been an option in pre-industrial, pre-enlightenment times, but we now have a variety of sophisticated, finely-tuned and infinitely more suitable ways to punish criminals.
Rehabilitation is a much better alternative and has been shown to work, particularly in Indonesia – the country that has indicated it will kill up to 1o prisoners later this month. In fact, it has been Andrew Chan’s and Myuran Sukumaran’s rehabilitation that has so captured the public’s imagination.
It was 10 years ago on Friday that nine Australians were arrested in Indonesia over a drug smuggling racket.
On the evening of 17 April 2005, a captive audience was able to watch on prime time television Indonesian police footage of the bust. A ratings winner, we saw as the Australian drug mules pulled up their shirts and revealed heroin packed to their torsos and thighs under grey tape.
In their Hawaiian shirts they looked sweaty, young and scared. The death penalty loomed over their cases from the start.
Coincidentally, Sukumaran shared his 34th birthday with the 10th anniversary of his arrest. In that decade, there have been numerous court proceedings, appeals, books and thousands of articles about the so-called Bali Nine. And then the usual stuff of life – Martin Stephens got married in a traditional Indonesian ceremony , Scott Rush got engaged to a woman he met the night before his arrest and Andrew Chan became engaged. Members were separated and moved to different prisons.
But through it all, the two who were painted as the ringleaders, have been able to reform and show it to the world.
Reformation is hard graft – even harder in an Indonesian prison where there were no outreach programs to offer a diversion or even the hope of rehabilitation. Chan and Sukumaran had to actually create their own rehabilitation programs. It required, over a period of years, being animated and engaged in the process of change.
The results, for both the men and their prison community, have been outstanding. The governor of Kerobokan prison even gave evidence of their achievements in jail at their appeals hearing.
Sukumaran’s paintings are currently being exhibited in London, while earlier in the year Chan was ordained a pastor. To achieve this in jail, while a death sentence is hanging over your head, shows remarkable personal resilience and commitment to improvement. Yet it hints at something deeper: in every person – including criminals – there lies a dormant, higher self.
Kerobokan, the prison where Chan and Sukumaran spent almost 10 years, is now being held up as the standard bearer for rehabilitation around the world, largely as a result of the programs started by the pair.
Michael Chan, brother of Andrew told News.com.au:
I think that what has kept us going is the fact that he is a changed man. When this all happened 10 years ago, he (Andrew) had no purpose in life and lack of direction which brought him to those crossroads and seeing him develop into the man he is today is a far cry of what he was then.
Whilst being there he has achieved so much more than a lot of people from the outside given the same time frame … that makes us very proud of him and that’s what keeps us, the family, going.
But there’s a prang in the narrative – something that doesn’t quite connect. Surely if you’ve reformed, you don’t get shot? Yet the Indonesian attorney general, HM Prasetyo, has been reported as saying the men may face death by firing squad before the end of the month, once when the Asian African Conference ends on 24 April.
Surely if you are a government that is fighting tooth and nail for your own citizens on death row abroad, you don’t go killing others at home?
It doesn’t make sense.
When I co-founded the Mercy Campaign in 2011, the petition numbers and supporters grew slowly. Now we have 250,000 signatures from people all around the world – including in Indonesia – respectfully requesting to President Joko Widodo that clemency be granted.
In getting to know Sukumaran and Chan since their case received widespread media coverage, there is a growing revulsion among the Australian public to the idea of killing them.
In an interview with the Guardian, human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson said that it is impossible to support the death penalty when you have proximity to it, when you feel like you know the story of the people involved.
It seems that a collective gut feeling has emerged among the Australian public that the deaths of Chan and Sukumaran are unnecessary; that killing them would be a waste, the pain of the families only adding to the sum of human misery in the world.
For many young Australians, the case of the Bali Nine is the first time they’ve engaged with issues surrounding the death penalty.
It’s a dark topic, but the discussion many of us are having in this darkness is heartening. It’s a discussion that, for the most part, has been filled with compassion and respect. Even the language is gentle – with everyone from conservative politicians, to shock jocks, to activists and musicians using words like mercy, forgiveness, rehabilitation, second chance and redemption.
There’s a new, different narrative that is emerging around issue of the death penalty: that things can change, people can change, minds can change and hearts can change.
So why can’t punishments change?
