AUSTRALIA RIGHTLY OFFENDED BY WHIFF OF DOUBLE STANDARDS

Australians have every right to feel cheated about the blatant double
standards of the Indonesian system of justice, says the Taranaki Daily
News. Even if Brisbane beauty therapist Schapelle Corby had willingly
and audaciously tried to smuggle a boogie-board bag of marijuana
through Customs on the Indonesian island of Bali, her 20-year jail
sentence is massively out of kilter against the treatment of Abu Bakir
Bashir. He is the founder and director of Jemaah Islamiah, an Islamist
school and terrorist training base, identified as such by the United
Nations and thus targeted for global attention. Its graduates were the
bombers at Bali's Kuta Beach nightclubs in 2002, which killed 202
people, including 88 Australians and three New Zealanders.

Other former pupils of Bashir's base in Solo, Central Java, have been
arrested for terrorist attacks at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta,
the same city's Marriott Hotel, and again in Bali last year.

In all, his brain-washed young Muslim warriors comprise a significant
slice of the 160 jihad terrorists in Indonesian jails - among them
the first Bali bomb trio, now on death row, and four others serving
life sentences.

Bashir's role in this slaughter is officially limited to approving of
the attacks, but Australians will not be alone in suspecting greater
involvement.

For his active support in this tally of bloodshed, Bashir was last
year jailed for 30 months - a derisive term by Western standards.

This insult to those killed and wounded in the attacks was aggravated
by its almost immediate reduction to 26 months.

Then this week he was freed for good behaviour and as part of an
amnesty to commemorate Indonesia's 60th anniversary of
independence.

In all, he served 14 months.

Schapelle Corby's 20-year term was not affected by the Indonesian
spirit of forgiveness to its leading fomenter of terrorism and hatred
against the infidel "kaffirs".

More disturbing is Bashir's jubilant and very public welcome by his
followers, and his total lack of remorse.

Quite the contrary.

The tone of his jail memoirs and post-release interviews was wholly
aggressive towards Australia and the United States.

Obviously his life's dream is undiminished - of the world's most
populous Muslim country switching from its official secular status to
an Islamic theocracy, with shariah law uprooting the country's shallow
democracy and commitment to international conventions.

The Indonesian Government's political balancing act, involving 220
million people, some privileged but most impoverished, scattered over
17,000 islands and 3000km, makes Australian politics a beginner's act
- - far less the little dot of New Zealand's.

Jakarta has tried to placate the Western mood for action against
terrorists, but has a blind spot regarding the core role of Jemaah
Islamiah, which it does not acknowledge even exists.

Indonesians, too, are killed when the bombs go off, so Indonesia
should be as disturbed by Bashir's liberty and values as Australia and
its like-minded allies.