RANT: Barmy Bali Drug Rot

56-year-old British grandmother Lindsay June Sandiford was today sentenced to death in Bali for trying to smuggle $2.5-million worth of cocaine into the Indonesian island.

Yes, sentenced to death.


Courtesy of 3 News, New Zealand

She claims that she did it because she was forced to do so when a drug gang threatened to harm her family if she did not, a not altogether unfeasible story, even if difficult to prove. But even the prosecution was seeking just 15 years imprisonment for her smuggling.

Instead, she may face death by firing squad.

This in a country where you don't get the death penalty for raping a woman or even torturing a woman or child. But bring drugs onto a (reportedly) drug-saturated island like Bali and - wham! - you could die for that.

It has been claimed that she is hardly a drug kingpin and, according to the Associated Press, "she has no money to pay for a lawyer, for the travel costs of defense witnesses or even for essentials like food and water."

I find all of this unacceptable. Death for drug smuggling? It's ludicrous, even if Mrs. Sandiford should have known better.

And I do NOT accept the argument that a country has the right to pass the laws it wishes. Not when those laws are as barbaric and medieval as condemning someone to death for what is clearly small-time smuggling. Yes, Indonesia - barbaric. And that goes for Singapore, Thailand, and all the other Asian nations who espouse these outrageous drug laws like some sick badge of honour.

The 'war' on the international trade in drugs is flawed to the hilt. Whilst there is no denying that the international drug trade has spawned a disgusting legacy of international gangsterism ruled by some of the most vicious and vile thugs on the planet, there is also no arguing that the 'war' to fight this drug scourge is often hypocritical, futile and even downright ludicrous at times.

I feel genuinely appalled by this case. Not because I believe drug smuggling should go unpunished or because I think Mrs. Sandiford should walk free with a mere slap on the hand, but because so outrageously penurous a penalty such as death is so uncommensurate with the act and so utterly morally warped as to make a mockery out of any sense of civilization.

Sentences such as these are the very epitome of the uncivilized.

I do not accept unjust, unduly harsh law of any kind. And I never will.

Do you get my point?