Schapelle Needs Help

Again, searching for info on Schapelle, hardly a thing to be found. I have, however, stumbled onto the page linked above, which outlines the basic story to date & gives some excellent info on how to help get Schapelle out:

1. Contact the Australian Prime Minister and the Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs, asking them to place pressure on the Balinese Government to release Schapelle Corby.

* Australian Prime Minister: John Howard, House of Representatives, Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600, Australia

* Australian foreign affairs Minister: Alexander Downer A.Downer. MP@aph.gov.au

2. Contact the Indonesian Consulate in Australia and demand that they set Schapelle Corby free. Threaten to boycott all travel to Bali until they grant Corby her freedom.

* Consulate General - Republic of Indonesia, 72 Queens Road, Melbourne, Victoria 3004, Australia; kjri@kjri-melbourne.org

3. Anyone who has ever experienced a problem with their luggage being tampered with at any Australian or Indonesian airports or has dealt with corrupt customs officials in Indonesia, please email your experience to: hfs_inc@hotmail.com

The site is also collecting donations for her cause, see the link for more info on that.

On a side note, I find myself torn inside by Schapelle's story. This presumably innocent girl has been sitting in jail for a number of months in Indonesia, the country Australia is falling over itself to assist since the tragic Boxing Day tsunami.

Of course we want to help our neighbours -- the innocent amongst them, that is. I fully back Howard's decision NOT to offer a total annihilation of all Indonesian debt. Who knows where that money will go? As we are seeing even now, the Indonesian people do not want to be told how to live or how to rebuild their country, and we should, as Howard is doing, respect their wishes.

And we should also be, again, as Howard is, cautious about the rebel and militant presence in Banda Aceh, and in the rest of the nation. Indonesia is a Muslim country, their social customs are different to ours, their heirarchy and rulers do not follow the same standards we are accustomed to in Western nations. There are many, many other factors at play, and to blindly assume all Indonesians are victims in the wake of the tsunami is foolish, to put it lightly.

Schapelle is living proof of this. She is being held without adequate proof of guilt, and likely to be used as an example of what Indonesia authorities define as "punishable evil".

She is far, far from that.

AUSTRALIA -- DO NOT FORGET SCHAPELLE.