Schapelle

I was mortified to read of Corby's sentence in a British paper over the weekend. 20 years! It's horrifying on so many levels.

I am the same age as Schapelle, and could not imagine surviving 20 years in an Indonesian jail. Let alone for something that I was innocent of.

And I do believe she is innocent. A victim of a plant, and then a victim of the unwillingness of the Australian government to take action for the individual. Same old, same old. But this is this girl's life!

I cannot believe that anyone who has travelled outside of Australia in this post-Sept 11 world, would think that placing a bag of marijuana on the top of your luggage would work out. Let alone adding 4 kilos to a bag only containing your body board. Noone could be that stupid.

Carrying marijuana into Indonesia would be ridiculous in the first place. Anyone who has been to Bali knows that. Noone would be stupid enough to think they could make a profit or whatever out of it. Plus Corby has reportedly done loads of travel to Bali - she can't have been stupid enough to be guilty. I cannot believe that anyone would be.

But the idea that perhaps the bag was planted at an Australian airport has the government hiding for cover. The notion that Australian standards are to blame would be outrageous, and too costly to fix, especially in a country that votes according to threats to their interest rates. Anything that may cost more money is something we don't want to deal with.

I can't believe that the footage of bags through x-ray machines is not kept until the bag is claimed at the other end. What's the point of it at all then??
And the weight arguements I have had at check-in - where is the accountability? They always record what my luggage weighs! What happened when she checked in??

The whole Corby ordeal, to me, shows just how bad the Australia/Asia relationship is in a shambles. And I do see Indonesia as the gateway into Asia realtions for Australia. To see that Little Johnny and The Downer have had no impact, couldn't negotiate anything, would not go in fighting for Schapelle - too frightening to really think too much about.

This could be any of us, travelling around the world. And our government does not have the balls to fight for justice, or for our lives.

And this is without thinking about the comparison of Schapelle's sentence to those sentenced for the Bali bombings...