By Dr Sushil K Sharma

Australia’s protest at the execution of two of its citizens in Indonesia is futile, only symbolic and definitely hypocritical, by any standard.

Two Australian citizens broke the law in another country. They were given lawyers, and were allowed to go through the full judicial process to defend themselves in the Court of Law in Indonesia, but still found to be guilty and could not be acquitted. 

Despite what other commentators say, the legal process was exhausted fully by the Indonesian judiciary, before they were executed. The process and procedure, the penalty for the crime, and the manner of the execution of the two individuals, was exactly the same whether the individuals were locals or expatriates. It also did not matter if they were from, for example, United Kingdom, India, Fiji, Australia or the USA.

For the crime these two men committed, the punishment in Indonesia is capital punishment – which is the highest form of punishment for such criminal acts. This is nothing new to Indonesia, and many countries still have capital punishment - that is death by hanging, lethal injections, firing squad and the like - including the United States of America.

Australia has never protested against capital punishments in the USA. No records exist historically for this to be the case. Lethal injections are given to criminals in the United States of America, instead of hanging by the rope, or the firing squad.

The end result is the same, whatever the manner of the execution; the idea is to take away one’s life for the crime that they have committed. We all know that the USA and Australia form the ANZAC military alliance and are allies in war. Is Australia’s silence when there are executions in the USA, due to this fact?

Similarly Australia exports many millions of live sheep to one particular oil producing nation the Middle East. The nation under discussion has its own laws where executions are common, as a form for capital punishment even for fairly minor offences. Often hands are chopped off or people tied to a stake and stoned for a number of crimes. 

Australia trades with this nation and many others in the region, to the tune of many billions of dollars. As I write, one Australian citizen in languishing in their jails right now, for being caught with some liquor in the boot of his car, that can be legally consumed in expatriate compounds, and also be sold to them by their embassy staff. Have you ever heard of Australia protesting about the kind and manner of punishments in these regions?

The same is the case in China where many human rights have been abused, however Australia still wants to do trade with that country to many trillions of dollars and one does not hear of any protest either. The list goes on.

The bottom line is that each country has its own set of rules and regulations, however barbaric they may sound, if you are in that country as a visitor—even Australia for example—one has to respect the rule of the law of the land. Anything less, will lead to the long arm of the law being applied on you. This is fair!

No citizen, once found guilty of some serious crime, being sent to the gallows should cry foul. Neither should their national leaders, at this late juncture suggest that the law is unfair. It maybe so, but that is another issue, and it cannot be used to leverage a sentence already passed for a crime already committed.

It appears that someone forgot to tell all the above to our dear Australian PM and his parliamentary colleagues, who have made some hypocritical comments after the execution, as reported in the media. It is undiplomatic for these Australian leaders now, at this late juncture, after the execution of their two citizens, to try to have another trial by the media; thus deflecting attention away from the core issue, which is that these two individuals were committed for the crime they did - which is not a fabrication!