EXECUTING the Bali bombers would be wrong, as was hanging Saddam Hussein, the Catholic Church has declared, stepping up pressure on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to adopt a consistent stand on the death penalty. After a series of mixed messages from Mr Rudd and Labor over the issue, the church in Australia has written to the Government urging it to oppose capital punishment in all circumstances, including for terrorists.
The church's social justice head, Bishop Christopher Saunders, said yesterday: "Life is sacred. No matter whose life it is, humans don't have a right to take it, apart from self-defence, whether it's the Bali bombers or Australian drug runners. Two wrongs don't make a right."
He said it was important for Australia's integrity to be seen as life preserving. "Even with people like Saddam, it's not our right to take life any more than it was his right," he said.
The church's move comes after Labor's election campaign altercation on the issue, when Mr Rudd publicly rebuked his then foreign affairs spokesman, Robert McClelland, for saying the Bali bombers should not die — a statement consistent with Labor's long-standing opposition to the death penalty.
At the time, Mr Rudd accused Mr McClelland of insensitivity for flagging a regional campaign against the death penalty just before the fifth anniversary of the 2002 Bali attack.
Weeks later, Mr Rudd's new Government voted at the United Nations for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty.
Last night a spokesman for Mr Rudd said he stood by his October 9 statement that he would never intervene to save a terrorist's life.
As part of its push for consistency on the issue, the Australian Catholic Social Justice Commission, which Bishop Saunders heads, recently launched a booklet, Confronting the Death Penalty. A contributor to the book, former Pentridge Prison chaplain Peter Norden, said at the book launch that the strongest thing Mr Rudd could do to save the Bali nine would be to oppose death for the Bali bombers. "We weaken our arguments when we campaign against the death penalty for Australians, but stand by when the citizens of other countries are executed," he said.
Father Norden, who was involved in the failed fight to save drug trafficker Van Nguyen from execution in Singapore in 2005, yesterday said the position a nation took on capital punishment was a litmus test for its humanity. "It's not a matter of self-interest or interfering in other countries' jurisdictions. It's not to do with guilt or innocence, but society's recognition of the value of human life," he said.
Father Norden said capital punishment extended punishment to innocent victims such as Nguyen's mother, Kim Nguyen.
The church leaders said former prime minister John Howard was inconsistent about capital punishment, opposing it for Nguyen and the Bali nine but not for the bombers. In October, Mr Howard said: "I find it impossible … to argue that those executions should not take place when they have murdered my fellow countrymen and women."
Brian Deegan, whose son Josh died in the 2002 Bali attack, wrote in the commission's book about his life long opposition to capital punishment. To adopt a different stance for the bombers would be opportunistic, hypocritical and vengeful, he said.
"The suggestion that Amrozi and his fellow evildoers should face an Indonesian firing squad is unconscionable because that would make the punishment as barbaric as the crime."
Mr Deegan said he felt little sympathy for his son's murderer. "I do not wish for the death of those convicted, for I oppose the death penalty under any circumstances. But … while I have understood the murderers' motives, I have yet to find forgiveness and therefore cannot pray for their lives."
Three Bali bombers — Imam Samudra, Amrozi and Mukhlas — yesterday were given a deadline of 30 days to appeal for presidential clemency before facing execution by firing squad.
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