When Byron Bay woman Sara Connor received a four-year prison sentence in Bali’s notorious Kerobokan jail for the fatal assault of local police officer Wayan Sudarsa on Monday, many were left scratching their heads.
How could 46-year-old Connor be penalised so leniently for a policeman’s death, compared to other Australians who have committed drug offences? Why did Schapelle Corby, the Queenslander who was convicted of smuggling 4.2 kilograms of cannabis in May 2005, receive 20 years? And why did the ring leaders of the Bali Nine, Sydney’s Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, die at the hands of a firing squad 10 years after trafficking 8.3 kilograms of heroin into the country?
Why are drug offences viewed to be more serious than violence causing death? Here, we navigate the tricky terrain of drugs, death, and the law in Indonesia.
A brief history
In the late 1940s, Asia’s ‘Golden Triangle’ in Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos, became the world’s biggest-producing area of opium. While documentation on rates of opium usage during this period is minimal, widespread sharing of needles caused HIV rates within Southeast Asia to skyrocket. Surges in drug-related crime and death, combined with pressure from the West, prompted the region to get tough on drugs, with neighbouring countries Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia introducing the death penalty for serious drug offences in 1975.
The move was a direct bid to halt the flow of narcotics from the Golden Triangle, and by 1998, approximately 60 per cent of Indonesian executions were for drug-related crimes.
Because Asia worked so heavy handedly to disband local production of heroin and the local underground drug trade, authorities hold a fervent hostility towards Westerners who undermine their efforts. The current Indonesian President, Joko Widodo, made the "war on drugs" a major part of his 2014 election campaign, and promised to send a clear statement to the world that Indonesia will not tolerate drug offences.
Top Comments
"While our focus has since moved on to rehabilitative and remedial approaches, this has not trickled down to our neighbours."
Our neighbouring countries are not below us to be trickled down onto, and we are not superior to them, we just think differently.
Well I thought it was inconsistent too the laxity of this sentence compared to drugs offences, but having read this article I can see why the Indonesians may have that attitude towards drug offences. I think putting someone in jail for 20 odd years for pot is a bit severe, I mean not many people are going to die from that (though obviously there are some other health issues such as susceptibility to schizoprenia etc for users), heroin though can and does result in deaths so that is obviously much more serious.
I guess if we think of it this way, many of us revile Belle Gibson even though she hasn't directly killed anyone but she has shown severe disregard for her victims and some of them may have died following her fake advice. So if you think of heroin pushers in that way, don't directly kill anyone but know that their activities are likely to result in death, then I guess that puts it into a different light.
I still think the sentences for this Sara Connor and boyfriend seem light, but well I wasn't in the court. i would say this I think she would be nuts to appeal it, they could end up throwing the book at her like they did with Scott Rush when he appealed (20 years changed to life on appeal) I heard one newspaper say that she won't get to see her kids grow up, thought that was a bit overdramatic, it is four years not forty!
One thing about this article though that I disagree with is the bit about Indonesia taking terrorism seriously, ha! Didn't they let someone of those Bali terrorists off lightly?