Gagging The Victim

 

The gagging of Schapelle Corby, breaching her human right of free speech, was the culmination of a process involving politicians, the AFP and the Australian media. It was driven by fear: fear that she would use her platform to expose the material published by The Expendable Project, which proves corruption and malversation amongst all these parties.

This website logs the many interventions made, as the Australian establishment sought to create pressure, not only within its own borders, but in Australia. The vehicle used was to be the myth of an enormous payment for an interview, a payment which never existed.

Ultimately, the perpetrators of this campaign were successful, in deluding the public, and in provoking the requisite response from Jakarta.

On the very day upon which Schapelle Corby was released, Michael Bachelard, Indonesia Correspondent for Fairfax Media, lengthened his own hostile track record by reporting that "Schapelle Corby's sister Mercedes has separated from her husband, Wayan, but did not inform Bali authorities, even though he is the drug smuggler's guarantor" (10th Feb)

He picked up local gossip, and not only reported it as fact, but scuttled off to the Indonesian Corrections Board, with what, on the face of it, could have severely jeopardised Schapelle Corby's release. The Corrections Board broadly told him to go away.

But Bachelard, colleague of the already discredited Eamonn Duff, was only just warming to the task.

Fairfax Media's entertainment reporter, Michael Lallo, had set the scene by inventing ridiculous offers, which were to be mysteriously made to Schapelle Corby for her first interview, with figures of the order of $3 million dollars being speculated. This was utter fiction, but its impact, in terms of public perception and envy, was clear.

Bachelard, however, used this ruthlessly, parading and flaunting the idea endlessly before the Indonesians, and apparently, probing for a reaction at every turn.

This was not the reporting of events, it was pro-actively provoking and agitating. It was using a Fairfax Media smear to create and build issues at Schapelle Corby's risk and potential expense.

Report after report was filed, and published, often many on the same day.

Everything was to be embellished. Her secure accommodation, away from the goldfish bowl the Australian media had wanted Schapelle Corby to be placed in, was also thrown into Indonesian faces "Schapelle Corby released from Kerobokan prison on parole arrives at luxury spa" (10th Feb)

Bachelard continued to fan the flames, with headlines such as "Bali parole board head visits Schapelle Corby as anger over interview grows" (12th Feb)

Make was no mistake about this. There was no payment for an interview. Channel 7 stated this clearly. Mercedes Corby repeated it. No money changed hands. This was intended to be an interview to enable Schapelle Corby, finally, to speak freely... to expose the truth.

Fairfax Media had, itself, invented the huge payment myth, and Bachelard had employed it endlessly, creating misplaced anger and envy in the process, which finally generated a political response.
Whilst dozens of armed AFP officers in Australia were, with Canberra’s approval, raiding and intimidating staff in Channel 7’s offices, and seizing everything in sight from Mercedes Corby’s lawyer, in Indonesia the reaction was predictable.