THOU SHALT NOT KILL (Australians)!

"I failed. I lost. I am sorry"

Tweeted Indonesian defence lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis as the guns from the firing squard rang out in Nusakambangan Island this morning.  Before the sound stopped echoing off the walls, 8 prisoners were dead.  On the other side of the island, the condemned's loved ones succumb to crippling grief as they hear the sound of the gunshots.  A short while later, the unadorned coffins are ferried to the mainland and are now beginning their voyage of repatriation.

It's a sobering scene.

Amongst the 8 were two Australians said to be the ring leaders of the “Bali 9” drug smugglers who were arrested 10 years ago.  Lawyers and activists have fought for their lives at every appeal level and whilst some grounds remained, the only secure chance of mercy was from the constitutional clemency powers of the Indonesian president.  In the end, this was denied despite enormous political pressure from Australia.  The clemency applications were never even opened.

It would appear that the executed had grounds of appeal remaining.  Regardless of your sentiments of the death penalty, (and I hope you’re not some Neanderthal who thinks that the death penalty is a good idea for a fair and just society in the 21st century) shooting people before their day in court is done is a vile perversion of justice and the rule of law. Outside of the realms of legal argument, the actions of the Indonesian government have been described as politically unsympathetic to its neighbour– Australia had begged for mercy for its sons but it did not come. All in all, this has sparked anger and outrage on this side of the Timor Sea.  And rightly so.

The Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott has taken action in response to these sentiments.  He has withdrawn the ambassador to Indonesia.  That’ll show ‘em Tony. 

Whilst it’s nice that Australia is “taking action” in response to these killings (and that’s what they are) Australia did not withdraw other ambassadors when other Australian citizens were executed.  Including in 2005 when convicted Australian drug smuggler Van Tuong Nguyen was executed in Singapore.  Nice consistency there.

Furthermore, Australia makes little noise over the death penalty exercised by many of its key trading partners – the USA and China being amongst them.  We wouldn’t want to rock the boat now would we?  Which really leads me to my main gripe with this whole bloody situation.

Whilst Australian’s have gotten in arms about these two wretched souls they were almost entirely silent on the other 6 killings.  They weren’t Australian.  In fact, Australia is pretty silent on the whole death penalty thing in the region unless it affects their own. 

To me this says one thing- Australians love human rights, their own.  This is a pretty common thread these days amongst Western democracies, human rights are fought zealously for their citizens but when the passport is a different colour, the concerns disappear.  Even when things happen within their own borders.  Treatment of refugees, asylum seekers and persons accused of crimes relating to national security quickly find that those rights may not be so solid for them as for Australians (or change Australian to “British”, “French”, “American”, “Italian” etc etc).  These are not human rights, they are citizen rights. 

If human rights are to apply, they need to apply universally.  Without exception. If we are going to lobby against the death penalty, we need to do it without exception.  Picking and choosing waters down the cause.  We either believe in the inalienability and universality of the right to life or we think that it’s something you earn along with your right to remain.

Human rights are for humans, not citizens. Anything less is an abomination to humanity and our vision of global justice.