Expendable: The Political Sacrifice of Schapelle Corby

By Jeralyn, Section Foreign Affairs
Posted on Fri Jan 27, 2012 at 08:44:00 AM EST
Tags: Schapelle Corby (all tags)

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Expendable has been released. You can watch it here. It tells the story of Schapelle Corby, the young Australian woman en route to a vacation in Bali, sentenced to 20 years in a Bali prison when 4 kilos of marijuana were found in her boogie board. Schapelle has always maintained her innocence and her incarceration has resulted in severe mental illness.

How a government wilfully withheld vital evidence from a court of law, deceived its public, orchestrated an unprecedented media campaign, and ruthlessly deployed its organs of state against one of its own citizens.

This is a frightening but entirely true narrative; a grotesque political horror story which is still unfolding today. It exposes what happens when an individual’s human rights conflict with strategic political need.

[More...]

It reveals the ruthless use of a government’s organs of state, and a regime of unprecedented opinion management, against a single working class woman and her desperate family.

It presents, and demonstrates, the crushing, pre-meditated, and often brutal acts which a western government is prepared to inflict upon a helpless citizen, in pursuit of political expediency.

In addition to the film, Expendable says:

Evidential proof of every abuse documented in the film is available in the report and exhibit sections of this website.

Watch the movie, in mini-segments or as a whole. And then resolve:

All of our posts on Schapelle -- dozens over the years -- are accessible here.

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Expendable: The Political Sacrifice of Schapelle Corby | 7 comments (7 topical)

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Expendable (5.00 / 1) (#1)
by KathH on Fri Jan 27, 2012 at 04:13:58 AM EST

Thanks very much for posting this. This case is a stain on humanity.

The link to Expendable is broken by the way. It should be www.expendable.tv

The Expendable Project is censored in Australia. Not a single column inch in any mainstream organ, including release of the film.

I am not sure whether there is a D-Notice, or whether it is down to the non-plurality of media ownership, but it is stark and real.

thanks, I fixed it (none / 0) (#2)
by Jeralyn on Fri Jan 27, 2012 at 11:19:29 AM EST

What's a D-Notice? Is it something to do with copyright?


: According to wikipedia (none / 0) (#5)
by Edger on Fri Jan 27, 2012 at 02:21:44 PM EST

A DA-Notice or Defence Advisory Notice (called a Defence Notice or D-Notice until 1993) is an official request to news editors not to publish or broadcast items on specified subjects for reasons of national security. The system is still in use in the United Kingdom.
In the UK the original D-Notice system was introduced in 1912 and run as a voluntary system by a joint committee headed by an Assistant Secretary of the War Office and a representative of the Press Association.
Any D-Notices or DA-notices are advisory requests so are not legally enforceable and hence news editors can, in theory, choose not to abide by them. However, they are generally complied with by the media. In 1971, all existing D-Notices were cancelled and replaced by standing D-Notices that gave general guidance on what could be published and what could not, and what would require further advice from the secretary of the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee (DPBAC)

This story is heartbreaking, every time (none / 0) (#3)
by Towanda on Fri Jan 27, 2012 at 12:16:04 PM EST

I am reminded of it, when you update it.

But don't sto doing so.

Why Bali and not Australia? (none / 0) (#4)
by Andreas on Fri Jan 27, 2012 at 02:05:55 PM EST

As the "Introduction" states in the first paragraph:
"However, her fate had been determined not in Bali, but in Canberra."

Then why is there a call to boycott Bali but not Australia. Because Australia is a very close and strategic ally of US imperialism?

: It Should Be Both (none / 0) (#6)
by KathH on Fri Jan 27, 2012 at 02:47:05 PM EST

IMHO it should be both.
Bali because of the sham trial, the terrible abuse of her human rights, and the ongoing mental torture.
Australia for all the crimes described in the film, and for endorsing the Bali abuses by selling her.
The film also says that TWO corrupt nations are killing here. They are dead right.

: because she was (none / 0) (#7)
by Jeralyn on Fri Jan 27, 2012 at 07:36:51 PM EST

arrested, tried and sentenced to 20 years in Bali. The laws that allow this travesty are those of Indonesia.