Jakarta, Indonesia – For greater than a decade, Mary Jane Veloso has been held in a jail within the Indonesian metropolis of Yogyakarta awaiting execution after being discovered responsible of drug trafficking.
This yr, her household acquired to see her for the primary time in 5 years.
“Mary Jane has been right here in Indonesia for a really very long time already. Earlier than Mary Jane’s father and I go away, we hope that she comes residence for her kids and he or she would be the one which takes care of her kids,” her mom Celia advised Al Jazeera.
“It’s been a really very long time. We would like her again,” she added.
Like many Filipinos, Veloso sought work abroad as a result of the cash was higher than at residence.
Leaving her two sons together with her mom, she first went to Dubai the place she spent 9 months as a home employee.
After one other family worker allegedly tried to rape her, Veloso left her job and returned residence to the Philippines the place she was approached by a girl named Maria Kristina Sergio who mentioned she had a job for her in Malaysia.
Keen for an additional probability, Veloso accepted the supply however when she acquired to Malaysia, she discovered there was no work.
Sergio, her contact, as a substitute urged Veloso be a part of her on a vacation to Indonesia, however when the ladies landed at Yogyakarta’s Adisutjipto Airport in April 2010, officers discovered 2.6kg (5.7 kilos) of heroin in 25-year-old Veloso’s suitcase.
Six months later, she was discovered responsible of drug trafficking and sentenced to dying.
Regardless of a tricky line on medication by Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who was first elected in 2014, Veloso has up to now managed to flee the firing squad.
She received a last-minute reprieve in 2015, when seven foreigners and an Indonesian had been executed, after Sergio turned herself in to the Philippines police on allegations of individuals trafficking and the federal government in Manila beneath then President Benigno Aquino requested for Veloso’s case to be reviewed.
As Widodo enters his previous couple of months in workplace, Veloso’s household at the moment are hoping the outgoing president will comply with clemency for the Filipino after, in March, giving a uncommon pardon to a different home employee who had additionally been sentenced to dying.
‘Pressured to go overseas’
Veloso’s supporters argue she is a sufferer of human trafficking.
In keeping with the Nationwide Union of Individuals’s Attorneys (NUPL), which is elevating consciousness about Veloso’s case, the medication had been “secretly stashed in a bag given to her by the brother of Tintin’s [Sergio’s] boyfriend in Malaysia with out Mary Jane’s information, consent or intention”.
Hailing from Nueva Ecija, north of Manila on the island of Luzon, all the ladies within the Veloso household had been among the many hundreds of thousands of Filipinos working abroad to supply for his or her households.
“Our life could be very tough, it’s very onerous, we don’t have a lot [money] to eat,” their mom Celia Veloso defined. “That’s why we’re compelled to choose to go overseas. All of my daughters, 4 of them… all labored abroad”.
Mary Jane’s recruiters for the supposed job in Malaysia, Sergio and Julius Lacanilao, had been discovered responsible in January 2020 of operating an alleged unlawful recruitment community and sentenced to life in jail.
Veloso has additionally filed a case towards the pair in the identical courtroom however has been unable to provide testimony as a result of it must be delivered in individual and he or she can not achieve this as a result of whereas being on dying row in Indonesia.
“The one barrier proper now for that to maneuver ahead is for each governments, each Indonesia and the Philippine authorities, to agree on the technicality… the place this testimony shall be taken,” mentioned Joanna Concepcion, who chairs Migrante Worldwide, an organisation advocating for Veloso.
Indonesian Ministry of Overseas Affairs spokesperson Teuku Faizasyah advised Al Jazeera he had not adopted up on the difficulty and referred inquiries to the Ministry of Legislation and Human Rights.
The regulation ministry spokesperson didn’t reply to Al Jazeera’s questions.
Widodo and former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who took workplace after Aquino, shared the identical hardline strategy to medication, with Duterte main a brutal crackdown, which left hundreds useless and is now the topic of an Worldwide Legal Courtroom investigation.
As an alternative of searching for clemency from Indonesia, Widodo mentioned Duterte had given the inexperienced gentle for Veloso’s execution in 2015. The Philippines, which doesn’t use capital punishment, mentioned Duterte had mentioned he would merely respect the judicial course of.
Migrante Worldwide’s Concepcion says there doesn’t appear to have been a lot of a change in strategy since Ferdinand Marcos Jr took workplace in June 2022.
“He continues the identical coverage and has not publicly mentioned that it might change something that Duterte had carried out,” she mentioned.
Indonesia and the Philippines are founding members of the Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Indonesia was the primary nation Marcos Jr visited after he was elected president..
“Possibly he’s taking part in it protected,” Concepcion added. “It was his first state go to at the moment as president, so I’m certain that the agenda gadgets that he would focus on had been very fastidiously deliberate out, of what particular points that his first state go to would concentrate on”.
Within the first two years of Widodo’s first time period, 18 individuals, together with two ladies, had been executed. All had been discovered responsible of drug offences.
Beneath worldwide regulation, the place the dying penalty exists, it’s supposed for use just for the “most critical crimes”, a threshold that doesn’t embody drug crimes.
Amid widespread criticism from nationwide, regional and world human rights defenders, there has not been an execution in Indonesia since July 2016, in accordance with Afif Abdul Qoyim, coordinator of the Neighborhood Authorized Help Institute (LBHM), an organisation that campaigns towards the dying penalty.
Activists have been calling for a moratorium, however one just isn’t formally in place.
“[The president] nonetheless can prepare an execution any time he desires, or the following authorities may also do it within the early a part of their reign,” Afif advised Al Jazeera.
Sustaining stress
Earlier this yr, Jokowi gave clemency to a different feminine migrant employee, Merri Utami, who was virtually executed in 2016.
Regardless that Merri Utami’s and Veloso’s circumstances share some similarities, Afif notes some key variations.
“One of many elements, most likely, is the nationality. Merri Utami is Indonesian, whereas Mary Jane has a overseas nationality,” he defined, including that Indonesia typically tried to recommend that it was foreigners who had been most concerned in drug trafficking.
Nonetheless, Mary Jane Veloso just isn’t shedding hope.
Whereas Marcos Jr could appear to have continued the Duterte strategy to the case, on the sidelines of his go to to Indonesia, his Overseas Secretary Enrique Manalo made a request for “government clemency” for Veloso throughout a gathering together with his Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi in Jakarta.
Now Veloso’s authorized staff is lodging an attraction earlier than Widodo leaves workplace.
“The reality is, the primary clemency was to SBY [Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian president from 2004-2014]. Mary Jane by no means requested clemency to Jokowi,” Veloso’s lawyer Agus Salim advised Al Jazeera.
The Indonesia normal election is scheduled for February 2024.
“We’re going to hold pushing till Widodo formally leaves the workplace… We’re nonetheless hopeful that there are some actions, some growth,” Concepcion mentioned.
Veloso’s household is anxiously awaiting developments.
Her eldest son Mark Danielle is now 20 years outdated,
“It’s onerous to develop up with out my mom,” he mentioned. “We actually need to be with my mom and be capable of see her on daily basis, to see her, to hug her.”
