Title – Pregnant Briton 'faces execution'Source – www.bbc.co.uk
Date – 1st May 2009
This is a difficult situation and a terrible position for Miss Orobator and her family to be in. I wouldn’t want to try and second guess what the real facts are in this case and under no circumstance do I want in anyway to justify the poor judicial system in Laos or the terrible conditions people face in gaol there. I also don’t want to give any opinion on the imposition of the death penalty for those crimes which she has been accused of or make any suggestion on her innocence or guilt.
However this story does once again highlight the dangers of drug use and especially drug dealing / trafficking in many parts of the world. It amazes me that people would still get involved with drugs in countries with such stringent drug laws, infamously dangerous gaols and judicial systems which are very prejudiced and often void of any due process.
Many countries have only relatively recently opened up to tourism. Just because tens of thousands of backpackers now visit and countries are more established on the tourist-trail, it doesn’t mean that the same rules will apply as we are used to in the UK; most importantly people from the UK need to know whatever they think of the law in these countries, if they visit them then they have to live by those laws and are subject to them. Being a British citizen does not exempt you from local laws and those found guilty will face the full force of local laws and are often made an example of.
Travellers to these parts of the world often take the availability of drugs as an recognition that drugs are in some way an accepted part of life or decriminalised. Fellow traveller talk of knowing how the system works and how the local authorities turn a blind eye ‘up to a certain quantity’; more serious still drug traffickers will convince or entrap travellers into acting as ‘drugs mules’, tell them they have paid off the police or customs officials or that the punishments for foreigners is only ever deportation. The fact is that the people spinning these stories are either in the drug trade and place little or no value on your life or are fellow travellers who use drugs and are telling the story as much to convince themselves, as out of complete ignorance.
The number of scams carried out on travellers which involve drugs is phenomenal, at best they will mean you end up paying off the police or someone pretending to be the police and in the worst cases travellers end up facing the death penalty.
In these worst cases it is always the British Government which comes under fire for not doing enough, but their powers are limited if (and I use the word ‘if’ carefully as this case is still unproven and we don’t really know the details of the case) people are found guilty. The consequences are that they face the full and often very harsh punishment of the judicial system of the country they are in. The British Government has very little they can do; blaming them is all very well and easy, but they simply can not interfere in sovereign state affairs, in very much the same way as foreign governments can not interfere in the British judicial system if one of their nationals is involved.
I know the counter arguments; that our system is better and fairer, people get fair representation, sentencing in more lenient and we do not have the death penalty and I agree with all those arguments. However the fact is, what we believe to be right and what we should rightly try and influence foreign governments to try and follow, is currently not the case in many countries around the world. I say time and time again to people planning on travel; never think that because something is right for us in the UK it is right for other countries; never behave the same way you behave at home and expect the same response when abroad; behave as they expect you to; and if you don’t like the system, tough, it is their system go with it or stay away.
I feel very sorry for the family and friends of Miss Orobator, to go through this is devastating and to go through this when you are so far away from the person affected in a country you don’t understand and where the ‘rule of law’ is so different to what we understand, makes the situation a thousand times worse; that the death penalty is involved and this strange and unexplained twist of her being pregnant makes the whole story even more tragic.
What I also have to quantify (while in no way suggesting innocence or guilt of Miss Orobator) is that the drugs trade has its own victims. Heroin in particular ruins lives and families, undermines communities both at the end users and for the producers, damage fragile environment and cost incalculable amounts. This is the justification of governments, especially in those countries so badly undermined by the drugs trade in areas such as South East Asia, in the harsh punishments they impose on drug traffickers.
Our message to independent travellers is simple; don’t go near drugs; don’t get tempted; say no; never carry anything across a border for anyone else (there is never an ‘exemption’ for foreigners and be sure smugglers are not people to trust, even when they tell you it is something different assume the worst); if you are offered ‘money for nothing’ there is always a catch; and don’t be too scared to call home if you need help, don’t let pride get in the way of what can be a very terrible fall.
At
Beyond The Blue (Safe Gap Year) our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness Workshop (GYITSA) considers issues of Travel Safety, alongside sessions on Ethical and Responsible Travel, Travel Health, Travel Equipment, Travel Insurance, Destination Advice, Transport Options, Documentation, Travel Money and Insurance and more.Date – 1st May 2009
This is a difficult situation and a terrible position for Miss Orobator and her family to be in. I wouldn’t want to try and second guess what the real facts are in this case and under no circumstance do I want in anyway to justify the poor judicial system in Laos or the terrible conditions people face in gaol there. I also don’t want to give any opinion on the imposition of the death penalty for those crimes which she has been accused of or make any suggestion on her innocence or guilt.
However this story does once again highlight the dangers of drug use and especially drug dealing / trafficking in many parts of the world. It amazes me that people would still get involved with drugs in countries with such stringent drug laws, infamously dangerous gaols and judicial systems which are very prejudiced and often void of any due process.
Many countries have only relatively recently opened up to tourism. Just because tens of thousands of backpackers now visit and countries are more established on the tourist-trail, it doesn’t mean that the same rules will apply as we are used to in the UK; most importantly people from the UK need to know whatever they think of the law in these countries, if they visit them then they have to live by those laws and are subject to them. Being a British citizen does not exempt you from local laws and those found guilty will face the full force of local laws and are often made an example of.
Travellers to these parts of the world often take the availability of drugs as an recognition that drugs are in some way an accepted part of life or decriminalised. Fellow traveller talk of knowing how the system works and how the local authorities turn a blind eye ‘up to a certain quantity’; more serious still drug traffickers will convince or entrap travellers into acting as ‘drugs mules’, tell them they have paid off the police or customs officials or that the punishments for foreigners is only ever deportation. The fact is that the people spinning these stories are either in the drug trade and place little or no value on your life or are fellow travellers who use drugs and are telling the story as much to convince themselves, as out of complete ignorance.
The number of scams carried out on travellers which involve drugs is phenomenal, at best they will mean you end up paying off the police or someone pretending to be the police and in the worst cases travellers end up facing the death penalty.
In these worst cases it is always the British Government which comes under fire for not doing enough, but their powers are limited if (and I use the word ‘if’ carefully as this case is still unproven and we don’t really know the details of the case) people are found guilty. The consequences are that they face the full and often very harsh punishment of the judicial system of the country they are in. The British Government has very little they can do; blaming them is all very well and easy, but they simply can not interfere in sovereign state affairs, in very much the same way as foreign governments can not interfere in the British judicial system if one of their nationals is involved.
I know the counter arguments; that our system is better and fairer, people get fair representation, sentencing in more lenient and we do not have the death penalty and I agree with all those arguments. However the fact is, what we believe to be right and what we should rightly try and influence foreign governments to try and follow, is currently not the case in many countries around the world. I say time and time again to people planning on travel; never think that because something is right for us in the UK it is right for other countries; never behave the same way you behave at home and expect the same response when abroad; behave as they expect you to; and if you don’t like the system, tough, it is their system go with it or stay away.
I feel very sorry for the family and friends of Miss Orobator, to go through this is devastating and to go through this when you are so far away from the person affected in a country you don’t understand and where the ‘rule of law’ is so different to what we understand, makes the situation a thousand times worse; that the death penalty is involved and this strange and unexplained twist of her being pregnant makes the whole story even more tragic.
What I also have to quantify (while in no way suggesting innocence or guilt of Miss Orobator) is that the drugs trade has its own victims. Heroin in particular ruins lives and families, undermines communities both at the end users and for the producers, damage fragile environment and cost incalculable amounts. This is the justification of governments, especially in those countries so badly undermined by the drugs trade in areas such as South East Asia, in the harsh punishments they impose on drug traffickers.
Our message to independent travellers is simple; don’t go near drugs; don’t get tempted; say no; never carry anything across a border for anyone else (there is never an ‘exemption’ for foreigners and be sure smugglers are not people to trust, even when they tell you it is something different assume the worst); if you are offered ‘money for nothing’ there is always a catch; and don’t be too scared to call home if you need help, don’t let pride get in the way of what can be a very terrible fall.
At
Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com. For a complete list of Blog entries visit our National Press Archive page.
For more information on any of our services, please call us on 0845 602 55 95 or Contact Us.
No comments:
Post a Comment