{"id":3740,"date":"2015-05-07T18:17:16","date_gmt":"2015-05-07T18:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=3740"},"modified":"2015-05-07T18:17:16","modified_gmt":"2015-05-07T18:17:16","slug":"richard-branson-condemns-bali-nine-executions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=3740","title":{"rendered":"Richard Branson condemns Bali nine executions:"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>&#8220;The death penalty is cruel, barbaric, inhumane and has no place in the world.&#8221;<!--more--><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Richard Branson has denounced the execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran by firing squad as \u201cneedless\u201d and \u201cbrutal\u201d, and warned the Indonesian government that the decision will severely \u201champer the country\u2019s chances to secure clemency for Indonesians facing the death penalty abroad\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Writing on the deaths of the alleged drug traffickers in his blog, the Virgin Airlines entrepreneur said: \u201cMary Jane Fiesta Veloso was granted a last-minute reprieve. But Rodrigo Gularte, Martin Anderson (aka Belo), Raheem Agbaje Salami, Sylvester ObiekweNwolise, OkwudiliOyatanze, ZainalAbidin bin Mgs Mahmud Badarudin, Andrew Chan and MyuranSukumaran lost their lives brutally and needlessly. \u201cBrutally, because the death penalty is always cruel, barbaric and inhumane. It has no place in a civilised society.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNeedlessly, because these executions will not do anything to deter drug trafficking in Indonesia or reduce supply and demand. There is plenty of evidence that prohibition and strict law enforcement have little to no effect on the drug trade. If Indonesia wants to tackle its drug problems effectively, it needs to return to evidence-based policies that place public health over criminal law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He went on to discuss the tales of prisoners\u2019 rehabilitation, particularly of Andrew and Myuran, whom he heralded as \u201cshining examples of people working through their mistakes and becoming productive members of society.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey were success stories of Indonesia\u2019s prison system,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd yet, they are dead now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Branson concluded: &#8220;the death of the eight prisoners in Bali will have a significant negative impact on Indonesia\u2019s standing in the world.\u201d <strong>(Reuters)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The death penalty is cruel, barbaric, inhumane and has no place in the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,49],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}