on the rails wrote:The death penalty debate is a very emotive and polarising subject. What gets me annoyed with this latest matter is Heads of our Govt. and high profile media people calling for or threatening sanctions / actions against Indonesia including people starting FB pages re boycotting Bali but do we take any action or threaten the U.S. Govt.? 32 U.S States plus the U.S. Govt (including Military) have the death penalty as ultimate punishment. Are we starting a boycott of all things American and why isn't that idiot Abbott and Julie Bishop threatening Obama and co.
Hypocrisy lives long in AUS!
this.
on an semi related matter, the australian media seem to latch onto anything happening around the world to australians, and ignore things happening to people from any other country. why is it when there is a massive tradgedy the media focus here is always first and foremost on how many australians are involved?
"overnight there was a tragic plane crash, x people are dead including y australians".... seriously, is it a bigger tradgedy because there were australians involved? personally i think it is completely irrelevant how many aussies were involved, it should be about EVERYONE involved, not just the handful that live here. its disrespectful to the families of all of the others, just because they live elsewhere they are seemingly afforded less sympathy.
indonesia have been executing people for decades (or longer? ive not looked into it), despite a recent break, and no one cared previously. many other countries around the world do the same, yet there are no calls to boycott them. why should we care more for these particular convicted drug smugglers than we have for all of the others indonesia have executed over the years? just because they lived here? why shouldnt we care about the people on death row in the US just because they havent lived here?
i think most people (not all, and im not directing this at anyone in particular) are just jumping on a bandwagon. they dont really care about these two, its just the thing to do on social media, be seen to be supporting them. if they truly believed that the death penalty should be abolished in indonesia, where have they been before now? i havent seen any protests before now? no one holding placards outside the indonesian embassy, no humanitarian trips to meet with the indonesian government on the issue until it involved aussies.
i personally think this will all be forgotten about in 6 months. in that time indonesia could execute 30 people from 30 different countries and as long as none of them are aussies we as a country wont care, and i dont see that as right. aussies dont deserve any better treatment than anyone from any other country, and the fact that we as a country behave like we should is wrong.
