Rita Panahi: Bali Nine — it’s time to bring them home
The five remaining members of the Bali Nine have paid a heavy price for their stupidity and, while it’s easy to say “let them rot”, no good comes from having them die behind bars.
Rita Panahi
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The Coalition has come out strongly against plans by the Anthony Albanese government to repatriate the five remaining members of the Bali Nine. And, the sentiments of opposition legal affairs spokesperson Michaelia Cash may be shared by a great many Australians who have no time and no sympathy for greedy boofheads who thought they could make a quick buck by trafficking drugs. But this issue should be above politics.
These five Australian men Matthew Norman, Michael Czugaj, Martin Stephens, Si Yi Chen and Scott Rush have already paid a heavy price for their stupidity; they did the crime and they’ve well and truly done the time. It’s time to bring them home. The men have spent almost two decades behind bars in poor conditions for their role in attempting to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia.
Two of the nine, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were needlessly executed in 2015. The pair were reformed, healthy young men when they were tied to a post and shot dead.
At the time Prime Minister Tony Abbott withdrew Australia’s ambassador from Jakarta and called the executions “cruel and unnecessary”. In 2018 another member of the Bali Nine, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, died in prison and in the same year the sole female convicted, Renae Lawrence, was released and deported to Australia.
Negotiations remain at a delicate stage with Indonesian authorities yet to confirm that the transfer will occur. And, it’s with that in mind that I do not write more forcefully about the many and obvious failures and inconsistencies of the Indonesian justice system. Ultimately it is up to President Prabowo Subianto to show the five Australians a measure of mercy and allow them to return home after 19 years behind bars.
It’s easy to say “let them rot” but one must remember these were young men, at the very bottom rung of the drug smuggling operation, and no good comes from having them die behind bars whether in Indonesia or Australia. All were under 30 when convicted and three of the men, Norman, Czugaj and Rush, were only teenagers when they were caught with drugs strapped to their bodies. They have done the time, they deserve to come home and have a second chance at living a productive life.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist