According to Indonesian human rights lawyer Professor Jimly Asshiddiqie, one of a number of factors that hampered the Australian Government’s pleas for clemency for convicted drug runners, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, was a poll conducted for triple j by Roy Morgan Research. 

The poll, asked triple j’s Hack program listeners: “In your opinion if an Australian is convicted of drug trafficking in another country and sentenced to death, should the penalty be carried out?”

Of 2,123 respondents, 52 per cent said “yes.”

In an article published in Fairfax media, Professor Jimly said this poll was seized upon by Indonesian President Joko Widodo to conclude that “the majority of the people in Australia don’t care about the executions – only the minority gets angry with Indonesia.” 

“So they think this is only about (PM Tony) Abbott’s politics, not Australia as a whole.” Professor Jimly told Fairfax, “the [Indonesian] government thinks this is not hurting the people of Australia, it’s only elites, who claim to be popular by misusing public anger.”

He said that conclusion had, “made the Indonesian government become stronger in their position.”

However, according to Professor Jimly, it was unlikely that anything Australia could have done would have changed the President’s determination to carry out the death sentence on the convicted drug smugglers.

Read the whole artice here.