An Indonesian anti-drugs group said yesterday Jakarta’s decision to parole Australian drug trafficker Schapelle Corby could put the “safety of our nation” at risk, as she prepared to leave prison on Bali.
The 36-year-old, whose case has attracted huge attention in Australia, could be freed as early as today from Kerobokan prison on the tourist island after the decision to grant her early release.
Corby, arrested in 2004 entering Bali with marijuana stashed in her surfing gear, will walk straight into a media frenzy, with dozens of journalists camped outside Kerobokan and a bidding war for her first post-jail interview in full swing. Corby’s well-documented mental illness, steadfast proclamations of innocence and fight to be freed from prison earned her sympathy in Australia.
However the view in Indonesia has been starkly different. Yesterday, the National Movement Against Narcotics (Granat) issued a strongly worded statement against the parole decision.
“Granat protests parole being granted, even if it is the ‘right’ of the prisoner,” said Henry Yosodiningrat, chairman of the group, which has long campaigned against Corby’s early release.
“Crimes committed by Corby or other drug convicts — they are crimes against the safety of our nation,” he added.
“The president should be sensitive to the public’s sense of justice, as the public will be the ones who will be hurt by this clemency shown to Corby,” he said.
He said that 5 million Indonesians had become drug users or addicts “as a result of drug crimes like those committed by Corby.”
Others urged the government not to grant parole in the run-up to Indonesian Justice Minister Amir Syamsuddin’s decision on Friday, with a group of eight lawmakers presenting a letter of protest. When he announced Corby was getting early release, Syamsuddin defended the decision, saying it was “not an act of generosity,” but “a right regulated by law.”
Farid Junaidi, Kerobokan prison governor, confirmed yesterday that the parole documents were en route from Jakarta to Bali and could arrive in that evening.
If the documents arrived late yesterday, Corby would still have to wait until today to complete procedural formalities during office hours before her release.
Corby, who was originally jailed for 20 years, but received several sentence cuts, will not be able to return to Australia immediately. Instead, she will have to remain in Indonesia until 2017 to fulfil the conditions of her parole. She is expected to stay with her sister Mercedes, who lives on Bali, down a tiny lane in the tourist strip of Kuta.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing