There was a comment on this weblog posted by "Jeremy" who has made a number of valuable posts (albeit opposing views to those expressed by me) and I felt the need to respond via a blog entry to Jeremy's recent comment. The thing that Jeremy did in his comment was to attempt to "lump" Schapelle's case in together with the Bali 9 and then attribute the support of this site and supporters to "our accused 10 drug smugglers" - a proposition to which I completely reject.
Jeremy,
You have said "I would ask that the government please not ruin our trade relations with Indonesia and put thousands of people out of jobs in Australia and Indonesia by circumventing the judicial system in Indonesia for the sake of our 10 accused drug smugglers."
Understand clearly that Schapelle Corby is in a different category to the so-called Bali 9, and it is ONLY Schapelle Corby's case that I have been writing about since late March.
Your seeming attempt to attribute the intention of this site to be seen as attempting to influence the Australian Govt or its people to sanction Indonesia on the basis of "emotional" support for Drug Smugglers is just patently wrong.
The purpose of my writing and campaigning is to point out that Schapelle (and indeed all accused people) should be considered innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
I CHALLENGE you to provide hard evidence to prove that Schapelle is GUILTY beyond reasonable doubt.
If you can, then do it - otherwise, please stop trying to convince people she is guilty on the basis of purely circumstantial evidence (the drugs were in her bag - she must be guilty)
(Hey, she MIGHT be guilty - I DO NOT KNOW myself if she is or not - I BELIEVE she is not but i can NOT say one way or the other, but, I also KNOW that I have seen or heard NOTHING yet to convince a reasonable person that she IS guilty. And, the overwhelming balance of circumstantial evidence points to her innocence.
You also wrote, "We have to all remember to be rational and not let emotions dictate our actions."
Jeremy, it is the rational people who are looking at the facts and saying that she is not guilty beyond reasonable doubt. It is, IMHO, the emotional people who are saying - she must be guilty, the drugs were in her bag (read...the dingo wouldn't take a baby.)
You said "I'm sure you all felt very sorry for the poor 18 year old boy who was forced into traffiking drugs from Indonesia because his family might be killed, but then hardened when you heard he had been there before on a false passport."
My response here is to ask you on what do you base this opinion that "(we) all felt sorry" -
One must be careful Jeremy to avoid jumping to conclusions that are not founded in fact - there is not one word written by me on the Bali 9 - What makes you think that (we) "all felt sorry" for the 18 year old - if you think that Jeremy, and if you think that all this conversation is about sympathy for poor hapless guilty drug smugglers that were unlucky to get caught in a country that has the death penalty, then Jeremy, you have entirely missed the point of our entire conversation here.
