I think the story of Schapelle Corby has only been reported in Australia, so for you foreigners, I'll explain what's going on.

Schapelle Corby is young Australian female who was caught smuggling drugs into Indonesia. She allegedly transported them in her boogie board bag. A total of 4.1 kg of Marijuana was found in her bag. She pleaded innocent, and her defense team claims the drugs were put into her bag without her knowledge. They claim there were people smuggling drugs into Indonesia, but they were afraid they would get caught, so they hid the drugs in Corby's bag. Most Australian's believe Schapelle Corby and were hoping for a acquittal. But just minutes ago, Schapelle Corby was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in jail. The Australian government is trying to get her to serve her sentence in Australia, rather than Indonesia.

Did any Australian's watch the live verdict? What did you think, are you happy with the verdict? Do you agree/disagree?
I think she is innocent, so I find the judge's verdict unfair. But that how life goes.

Yahoo! Australia and New Zealand have set up a poll asking is people agree with the judge's verdict. The results so far are...

Yes 23%
No 69%
Undecided 8%

You can read more about the Schapelle Corby verdict by clicking on this link http://au.news.yahoo.com/050527/21/ui01.html

Well, well... Indonesias human rights record has been appalling since the military junta took power, executions, mass arrest, genocide. Now an attractive westener with big boobs has been jailed there is outrage.

As an Australian it is difficult to see this clearly.  I try to get past whatever xenophobia I may unconsciously be harbouring against our northern neighbours.

I think the 'concept' underlying Indonesia's well known stance of being extremely hard on drugs is commendable, but for a very long time it has seemed (and I say seemed because the only info I ever hear about this is from the Australian media...) that they have lost the plot, in as much as they are SO gung ho about 'showing' everyone that this is their stance, that they perhaps have lost sight of the concept of innocence or guilt.

Now, I don't KNOW whether Schapelle is guilty or not guilty, and I will never know. 

What is disturbing is that you will find very few people in Australia (that I have spoken to, at least) who seem to think she is guilty based on the information that we are aware of.  Yet you would find just as few who really believed that she had a snowball's chance in hell of ever being acquitted either, and that says something, and it has to do with the country in which she was being tried.... :-\\

Fair trial ?  Who can say ?  But when you turn on your TV and find the judge (Yes !  The JUDGE) being interviewed (oh, btw, this is days BEFORE the verdict is handed down  :o) cheerfully stating that he has presided over more than 500 such cases and has NEVER acquitted one of them....well that to me is somewhat disturbing.

The message it sends to me is that if you go to Bali (or wherever in Indonesia) and they decide for whatever reason to say that you had drugs on you, then that is it.  :(  You're gone sunshine.  End of story.  That's all, she wrote.  :(  Because, according to those figures, they are never wrong.  >:(  To be very kind to them, 0 / 500 is at least, a statistical unlikelihood  >:(

Well, well... Indonesias human rights record has been appalling since the military junta took power, executions, mass arrest, genocide. Now an attractive westener with big boobs has been jailed there is outrage.


I think there's few people from Australia and NZ who would argue that Indonesia's human rights record isn't terrible; I think the outrage is more that it was an attractive westener with big boobs who has been jailed there. How much press would she have got if she was frumpy, fat, "of Middle Eastern appearance", or a bald man with tattoos? I'm surprised anyone could have expected her to go free. She had 4 kilos of dope in her luggage. Even in Australia she would have been hard-pressed proving she had nothing to do with it (and if it had happened here, no one would have heard about it). 

So the moral of the story apparently is:

If you are a Westerner, attractive and have big boobs, your life is of less value and your plight should be sloughed off with derision?

I have been following this story on Australian radio so I was unaware of the race, attactiveness, or chest size of the defendant. I do know that the evidence presented of her innocence is clear cut enought to make this story very disturbing. A prisoner in an Indonesian jail admitted that friends of his bragged about setting her up.

Quite a few Australians have been convicted in Indonesia of smuggling drugs, and possibly some of them were "Westerners" and attractive and maybe even had big boobs. There was not an uproar in those cases because the evidence of guilt on most of these was obvious. This case is not about sex-appeal. This is about a young woman whose only crime was attempting to take a vacation in a questionable place, and now her life is over.

I am sickened by the verdict, but I am almost equally sickened by the callous remarks of a couple of the above posters. Maybe next time it might be your daughter, sister or mother. Better hope they are dumpy and unattractive so you will not have the heartbreak of reading such insensitive comments...

As for the solution, I believe the Australian government ought to do with Indonesia as the American government has done wiht Cuba - forbid its citizens to travel there. Maybe after losing billions and billions of tourist revenue for a few years, the present regime of Indonesia might think twice about how it treats both its own citizens and those of other countries. I doubt it, but maybe it is time to send a message...

I don't think people mean to be callous towards the woman charged with the crime, but the point is valid that our passion about these issues is very often directly related to how sympathetic or attractive (physically or otherwise) we consider the people involved to be.  Scott Peterson would not have aroused such passionate public hatred if Laci had been a frumpy, nondescript middle-aged woman.

I don't think people mean to be callous towards the woman charged with the crime, but the point is valid that our passion about these issues is very often directly related to how sympathetic or attractive (physically or otherwise) we consider the people involved to be.  Scott Peterson would not have aroused such passionate public hatred if Laci had been a frumpy, nondescript middle-aged woman.


Yes, even Russell Crowe weighed in and said something about how awful for such a good looking girl.
That suc*s.  I tend to think maybe she did it, and though I do not believe that she should recieve that kind
of a sentence people really have to understand what they are get into drugs, especially in an international
capacity.  There are countries that come down hard, as illustrated here.  She actually could have gotten the death penalty.  I wonder how many not so good looking people are in foreign jails for the same offence, and no one notices because the don't have billboard looks.

Schapelle's Show?

So the moral of the story apparently is:

If you are a Westerner, attractive and have big boobs, your life is of less value and your plight should be sloughed off with derision?

I have been following this story on Australian radio so I was unaware of the race, attactiveness, or chest size of the defendant. I do know that the evidence presented of her innocence is clear cut enought to make this story very disturbing. A prisoner in an Indonesian jail admitted that friends of his bragged about setting her up.

Quite a few Australians have been convicted in Indonesia of smuggling drugs, and possibly some of them were "Westerners" and attractive and maybe even had big boobs. There was not an uproar in those cases because the evidence of guilt on most of these was obvious. This case is not about sex-appeal. This is about a young woman whose only crime was attempting to take a vacation in a questionable place, and now her life is over.

I am sickened by the verdict, but I am almost equally sickened by the callous remarks of a couple of the above posters. Maybe next time it might be your daughter, sister or mother. Better hope they are dumpy and unattractive so you will not have the heartbreak of reading such insensitive comments...

As for the solution, I believe the Australian government ought to do with Indonesia as the American government has done wiht Cuba - forbid its citizens to travel there. Maybe after losing billions and billions of tourist revenue for a few years, the present regime of Indonesia might think twice about how it treats both its own citizens and those of other countries. I doubt it, but maybe it is time to send a message...


Zella, I'm not sure if you understood my point. It's terrible that this has happened to anyone, guilty or not. I empathise with Schapelle Corby, her friends and her family. There is a mountain of evidence to suggest that she was an innocent pawn in a global drug network, and evidence to suggest that the drugs she had weren't even meant to leave Australia. It's right that we feel sympathy for this woman and want to see her attain the justice she deserves, but we should be feeling sympathy for the right reasons. Schapelle is an attractive, polite young woman who seems to be a wholesome model of society. At the same time, there's another Australian woman named Renee Lawrence being held in Bali on smuggling charges. She's plain, butch, a lesbian, and an itinerant of low social morals. If convicted, she's likely to be executed by firing squad. Now, if Schapelle was Renee and Renee was Schapelle, would the same level of sympathy have existed? Call me cynical, but I doubt it.
 
There are cases like Corby's everywhere that don't receive anywhere near the publicity this one has. It's like our version of the Michael Jackson trial. They even showed the verdict live on morning television. That wouldn't even be allowed in Australia. At the same time this has been going on, there's been an Australian man locked up in Fiji without trial for years who hasn't even made the news. We had an Australian citizen of Arabic birth rotting away in Guantanamo Bay for two years on suspicion of being a terrorist. He was finally released because of lack of evidence. He wasn't in the news every night, and unlike Schappelle, he wasn't even found guilty, but I'm certain there was a majority of Australians who couldn't have cared less what happened to him.

Zella, I'm not sure if you understood my point. It's terrible that this has happened to anyone, guilty or not. I empathise with Schapelle Corby, her friends and her family. There is a mountain of evidence to suggest that she was an innocent pawn in a global drug network, and evidence to suggest that the drugs she had weren't even meant to leave Australia. It's right that we feel sympathy for this woman and want to see her attain the justice she deserves, but we should be feeling sympathy for the right reasons. Schapelle is an attractive, polite young woman who seems to be a wholesome model of society. At the same time, there's another Australian woman named Renee Lawrence being held in Bali on smuggling charges. She's plain, butch, a lesbian, and an itinerant of low social morals. If convicted, she's likely to be executed by firing squad. Now, if Schapelle was Renee and Renee was Schapelle, would the same level of sympathy have existed? Call me cynical, but I doubt it.
 
There are cases like Corby's everywhere that don't receive anywhere near the publicity this one has. It's like our version of the Michael Jackson trial. They even showed the verdict live on morning television. That wouldn't even be allowed in Australia. At the same time this has been going on, there's been an Australian man locked up in Fiji without trial for years who hasn't even made the news. We had an Australian citizen of Arabic birth rotting away in Guantanamo Bay for two years on suspicion of being a terrorist. He was finally released because of lack of evidence. He wasn't in the news every night, and unlike Schappelle, he wasn't even found guilty, but I'm certain there was a majority of Australians who couldn't have cared less what happened to him.


Is she famous in Australia?  If she is, it's probably because of that, not because of her looks.  To me, Robert Blake is definitely not attractive, but he made the headlines because he's famous.  It's the same with Michael Jackson.  On the flip side, some people have friends and family that go to the media with the hope of getting national or international attention.  Look at Terri Schiavo's case.  Her family went public so they could put the feeding tube back in.  They did whatever they thought necessary to accomplish this.  Though sometimes it may be about looks, it isn't always.

:(  Schapellopoly :