We're Still Here

But I refuse to let this place break my spirit. I use all my energy and willpower to pull myself back together. I forcibly replace negative thoughts with positive ones. Staying sane really does take a lot of energy, but I have to, out of respect for those who love me.

-- Schapelle Leigh Corby





In War : Resolution
In Defeat : DEFIANCE
In Victory: Magnanimity
In Peace : Goodwill

-- Winston Spencer Churchill




It is one thing to fool the people and quite another to keep them fooled in perpetuity.

- - DJW, Schapelle supporter



The English people are not good haters, their memory is very short... to twentieth-century political theories thay oppose not another theory of their own, but a moral quality which must be vaguely described as decency. On the day in 1936 when the Germans reoccuppied the Rhineland I was in a northern mining town. I happened to go into a pub just after this piece of news, which quite obviously meant war, had come over the wireless, and I remarked to the others at the bar, "The German army has crossed the Rhine." With a vague air of capping a quotation someone answered "Parley-voo." No more response than that! Nothing will ever wake these people up, I thought. But later in the evening, at the same pub, someone sang a song which had recently come out, with the chorus:


For you can't do that there 'ere,
No you can't do that there 'ere;
Anywhere else you can do that there,
But you can't do that there 'ere!

And it struck me that perhaps this was the English answer to fascism.

-- George Orwell, 1943





On March 28 the Indonesian Supreme court refused to grant Schapelle a judicial review, ending her last formal appeal. Officially the twenty year sentence ( less remissions) stands unless she is granted a presidential pardon, which would require admitting guilt. ( She has from the beginning refused to do so, and the Indonesian president has made a point of stating he would not pardon drug criminals). Knowing the nature of the Indonesian "justice" system, nearly everyone who has kept up with the case on the support forums expected this yet it is still a shock. I guess I vaguely thought the judicial review results would be delayed indefinitely for political reasons. There was nothing to review, really. No new evidence of the non-existent Corby drug gang ( which is known to be non-existent by Australian law enforcement, who did not search the Corby's home or do any serious investigating), no new information on Schapelle's supposed contacts in Indonesia ( or was she planning to sell the marijuana herself on Bali's beaches crawling with local drug-dealing cops who would have arrested her within 5 minutes), nothing new regarding security lapses in Australian airports ( the latest official word is that the airport cameras aren't switched on except when officials see a "person of interest" - say WHAT?). What physical evidence there was was burned after a previous appeal, which is standard procedure in Indonesia. A judicial review is supposed to review the proceedings of the court itself - not much to review there either in a country where the courts are essentially a rubber-stamp for the police. Justice Linton Sirait had never found anyone innocent in 500 previous drug cases, ( actually rumor has it he has never found anyone innocent of ANYTHING ). The joke told by those who know about the Indonesian system is that their courts are there to separate the guilty from the very guilty, with only the severity of sentence being really in doubt. The prosecutors in fact seemed strangely uninterested in their own case, not doing the most elementary tests which might prove her guilt. For example

• Fingerprinting is standard in any such case; the explanation of why it was not allowed was that too many others, particularly the police in the airport had handled the bag. This is nonsense, of course - modern techniques could separate Schapelle's prints from the large number of others - and who told the police to handle it without gloves anyway?

• DNA-testing is similarly not difficult in this day and age - if Schapelle had packed the drugs tiny fragments of her hair would be embedded and identifiable, but no such test was done. DNA-testing would certainly have shown country of origin and other characteristics of the mj, something which ought to have been of interest. Remember this is the first ever drug IMPORT case to Indonesia from Australia, a country not previously listed as a source for drug smuggling. As it stands there is nothing to disprove the ( quite plausible ) theory that the marijuana was from Indonesia not Australia and that corrupt officials there planted it themselves.

• Schapelle supposedly said "the drugs are mine" after her bag was searched at customs. No one would admit that under those sircumstances, even if he were guilty. Pleading guilty to get a reduced sentence is what you do in court later - all real criminals give the same amazed "how'd THAT get in there?" explanation when first caught. What Schapelle actually said of course was that the boogie board bag was hers. The customs officer did not speak English well and there was no real attempt to test his language competency or question him closely about his mistaken quote.




• Speaking of which, the three judges also do not speak English and didn't bother with a translator for Schapelle's last court statement before the first verdict. Not that they needed to, with a previous 500 cases+ perfect record. If everyone standing before you is guilty, what difference does it make what they say or in what language? Presumably Indonesia has something like the infallible pre-cogs in that Minority Report movie, and they really ought to share the secrets of police perfection and judicial omniscience with the rest of the world.

This is not an exhaustive list, but you get the idea.


The mood on the official support forum is shocked ( "gobsmacked" is the Australian word?) but grimly determined. I ntellectually we expected this, but "the heart has its reasons which reason does not know" (Pascal). This affair serves as an indictment of our entertainment culture and the shallowness of public opinion, 95% believing her innocent three years ago because she is young and beautiful ( she looks innocent, so she must be) and many willing to abandon her now for the same reason ( she looks innocent, but the Australian government failed to meaningfully protest her blatantly unfair trial, so she must be hiding something). But entertainment culture has its limits. You can get bored and change the channel, but reality has a way of pulling the plug. Priorities change, alliances shift, today's political expediency becomes inexpedient tomorrow - long before the end of her awful sentence the Indonesians will find a reasson for a new investigation/review/whatever and release her. In the long run you really CAN"T "do that there 'ere, " and the essential gentleness and decency which Orwell saw in the English will prevail in Australia as well. And on THAT day the people who change their opinions as easily as their socks will suddenly remember that they, too believed in Schapelle's innocence all along. It is the task of the support group to stay strong and grow gradually until then.











This is the preferred strategy of the Australian government and most of the Australian people regarding Schapelle's case. It won't work long term.











The truth will out sooner or later, Indonesian authorities will "discover" anomalies in her trial, and Schapelle will come home. On that great gettin' up mornin', what will you wish you had done now? Schapelle needs our encouragement, now more than ever.

Miss Schapelle Corby
C/-LPM Kerobokan JI

Tangkuban Perahu Kerobokan

Denpasar 80117
Bali, INDONESIA

Schapelle Corby, Innocent Australian in Indonesia

In late May 2005 I was standing in a bank line idly watching a cable news station I don't get at home. The featured story was a strange criminal case in Indonesia and showed a young lady crying in court. I was moved in a way I cannot explain or entirely recall although I did not catch her name, only her nationality. I went home and googled on "Australian drug charge Indonesia" which brought up the name Schapelle Corby. A bit of slinking and scurrying around the internet over the next week or two brought me up to date on the story, which began in October 2004. Schapelle Leigh Corby is an attractive and articulate but ( it then seemed) perfectly ordinary 27 year old taking a break from caring for her termially ill father with a quick holiday in Bali, a common beach resort destination for Australians. She traveled with her brother James and two friends, planning to celebrate her sister Mercedes' ( who had married a Balinese man and often spent time there with their children) 30th birthday. Schapelle flew from Brisbane to Denpasar with a stopover in Sydney, checking her baggage through all the way. She had a suitcase and a "boogie board" ( small surfboard) bag, all unlocked but clearly labelled with her name. At customs she was told to check the boogie board bag through at the oversize counter, noticing on the way that the zippers were in a different position than she had left them and the carrying strap had been cut. Her brother helped carry it to the counter where they asked if it was his. "No, it's mine," said Schapelle and lifted it up fopr inspection, noticing far too late that it was heavier than it should have been. The bag contained 4.2 kg of marijuana.

The world's stupidest smuggling gang poses bravely for an airport photo just before going over the top. Do all people risking the death penalty look this happy?

The marijuana was in a transparent plastic "space bag" which was inside a second identical space bag, both unconcealed at the top of the boogie board bag which contained nothing else but a pair of flippers. The inner bag had been cut allowing the smell to escape. Customs officials would later deny cutting it and the cut has never been satisfactorily explained. There was no need for officials either to cut the ( already transparent) bag or to deny doing so if they thought it necessary, but surely no real drug courier would cut his own bag increasing his chance of being caught! Nor would any accused smuggler whether guilty or not, admit that the drugs were his - as officials would claim that Schapelle admitted. What she said, of course was that the boogie board bag was hers. Officials did not detain her brother for long, did not search her other traveling companions, and DID NOT SEARCH HER SUITCASE. There is no previous cse on record of anyone smuggling marijuana FROM Australia TO Indonesia, that is like taking cocaine to Colombia or smuggling heroin into Afghanistan. Marijuana grows wild in Indonesia and has a street value in Bali far less than it can be bought for in Australia. There is a rumor ( based on a single news article with no identified sources) that a high grade of marijuana called "Aussie Gold" is smuggled by Australian tourists to sell to other Australian tourists on Bali's beaches ( to avoid local dealers who may be undercover cops) but the failure of those who believe this to show even ONE such case ( names, dates, trial results ) identifies this as an utrban myth. Indonesia's drug penalties ( including death) are well known and the risks of such an operation would be insane - if it is unsafe to buy drugs from possible undercover cops, how is it safe to sell drugs in competition with them? An "Aussie Gold" dealer (if there were any such thing) would be arrested within the hour. Even if someone were crazy enough to try it he would hardly walk through customs whistling with the drugs unconcealed ( having cleverly cut the bag beforehand to give customs agents an extra chance). The only kind of drug courier I can think of who might try this is one who was using his own product at the time ( Schapelle's blood and urine tests were clear). Other obvious tests common to all modern law enforcement were not done - there was no fingerprinting of either bag ( officials claimed too many police had handled them) and no DNA-testing for the origin of the marijuana, although Schapelle requested both tests repeatedly. Officials also refused to weigh the luggage and compare it with the original claim ticket from Australia. Closed circuit TV footage from all three airports was mysteriously unavailable, with varying explanations given.

Authorities refused to DNA-test the marijuana for point of origin or even to fingerprint the inner bag, claiming too many people had already handled it. Like the presiding judge, for instance.

Schapelle was taken to a holding cell at Polda while Mercedes frantically tried to find lawyers they could trust, arrange consular visits, and deal with the mounting press attention paid to the "celebrity prisoner." Schapelle goes into bitter detail about all this in her book My Story, based on interviews given to Kathryn Bonella from Kerobokan Prison to which she was eventually transferred. The book is very difficult to get through with its uncompromising description of Schapelle's unfolding nightmare - the numbing sense of unreality in the first court apearances, the horrible sanitary conditions in her holding cell, wondering whom to trust. Realizing after hiring her first legal team that one of the lawyers was not on the conulate's approved list and another was not a lawyer at all. Dealing with self-styled "representatives" who wanted a signed contract with a percentage of profits from Schapelle's presumed eventual book/movie deal. Endlessly traveling back and forth from prison to court in a crowded bus in handcuffs. Seeing demonstrtors carrying signs she could not read except for her own name and wondering if they were supporters. "No, Schapelle, they're here to support the DEATH SENTENCE" her translator gently explained. "The signs say KILL you ." Being often unable to sleep or keep food down until she was briefly hospitalized after collapsing in court. Then, finally, the appearance in May 2005 for the final verdict. There was a surreal Twilight Zone quality to that day, with Schapelle desperately trying to believe that presumption of innocence and requirements of evidence meant the same in Bali in Australia, that her innocence would be clear to the judges and she could go home that day. Unbeknownst to her the presiding judge ( Linton Sirait) openly boasted of never finding anyone innocent in over 500 previous drug trials. In her book Schapelle describes trying to learn enough Indonesian to understand the verdict but was unable to concentrate when it came to the point and looked to her translator for the meaning of "Tahun dua pulu tahun" - "Two. Two years?"..."No. Eka said, shaking her head. "Ten years?" "No, not ten years..." Then Eka said, "Twenty. Twenty years." I froze. A tremor ripped through my soul. I was in shock, motionless, stunned, disbelieving. My heart stopped. Time stopped. The room went hazy. Nothing felt real. I wasn't there..." But it is real, and nearly three years later Schapelle is still in Kerobokan Prison sharing a cell with between 6 and 12 other women, locked in for over 15 hours a day. Two appeals failed to exonerate her and she is presently awaiting the results of a "judicial review." Sentence remissions will probably reduce the sentence to 11 years or so , but few in Indonesian prisons survive that long. A Prisoner Transfer Agreement ( PTA) could allow her to serve part of her time in Australia, but no such agreement has been finalized between the two countries. To qualify for a PTA she might have to admit guilt, which she steadfastly refuses to do.

It was Schapelle sniffling through her last statement before the court that I saw standing in that bank line in 2005. The judges do not speak English and had no English translator for the time she was speaking. This story has moved me more than any news story I can think of except Sept. 11. If it can happen to Schapelle it can happen to anyone. While I have a sister her age I don't look at Schapelle and see her - I see myself, caught up in a nightmare through mo fault of my own and with no end in sight. Except that I could not remotely do what she has done - remain strong and continually proclaim her innocence, through the failed appeals and the endless waiting. In her place I would long since have told the authorities to shoot me and be done with it. I am in awe of her courage and her Christian testimony, repeatedly saying she still loves the people of Bali and bears no ill will toward them, praying for her lawyers and judges and fellow prisoners as if "love your enemies" were a serious command. And dictating her book in secret interviews from her cell, knowing that might anger authorities enough to get her transferred somewhere even worse. I could not do it, not in a million years.

Miss Schapelle is enormously comforted by the letters she gets, though she cannot answer them all. Care packages also get through and are gratefully received by her and the others she shares the contents with. The address for letters and care packages is

Miss Schapelle Corby

C/-LPM Kerobokan JI
Tangkuban Perahu Kerobokan

Denpasar 80117

Bali, INDONESIA

"But I refuse to let this place break my spirit. I use all my energy and willpower to pull myself back together. I forcibly replace negative thoughts with positive ones. Staying sane really does take a lot of energy, but I have to, out of respect for those who love me."

- Schapelle Corby, MY STORY

May God grant her peace until He brings her home.