SYMPATHY for Bali Nine ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran's families is well warranted.
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Empathy for the two convicted drug smugglers is most certainly not. In 2005, before their plan to traffic 8.3 kilograms of heroin into Australia failed - they knew what consequences awaited.
The death penalty is an abhorrent punishment, but people, some innocent, have been killed in countries around the world for lesser crimes.
The Australian people should not be made to feel sorry for them by the Australian media's overplay. Chan and Sukumaran are not victims.They are criminals. Drug traffickers.
What about the heartache and pain families of drug abusers and addicts go through?
Would Chan and Sukumaran have felt sorry for the families of their potential victims had their botched plan succeeded?
Annually in Australia, hundreds of people die from heroin overdoses and drug abuse destroys many thousands more.
Australia is one of the worst countries in the world for recreational drug use, as the United Nation's 2014 World Drug Report pointed out.
Chan and Sukumaran led a crime that was in contravention to, and brutally condemned under, Indonesian law. At one stage, it was suggested the Australian government (taxpayers) should pay to bring them home and house the pair in our prison system for the rest of their lives.
Would they have shared the drug ring's $4 million-plus profits from the heroin they attempted to smuggle? They took their chances and lost.
Politicians are bound to stand up and fight. In 2013, Australian baseballer Chris Lane, 22, was gunned down by 17-year-old Chancey Luna in Oklahoma.
Luna pleaded guilty to unintentionally shooting Lane and was sentenced to life in prison, however, his devastated mother insisted her boy was not a killer.
"They got what they wanted. They took my son and now my heart is black," Jennifer said. "My son was 16 years old. It was not meant to be. My son is not a killer!"
Her anguish is understandable but her son is also not the victim. Lane and his family are the victims.
Sympathy for the families of criminals and murderers is deserved and only natural, but sympathy for convicted drug traffickers and murderers doesn't fit.
