Friday, May 1, 2015

AUSTRALIA RECALLED AMBASSADOR, REMOVES JOKOWI POTRAIT AFTER EXECUTIONS

Australian, Indonesia relationship is in jeopardy. Australia has recalled its ambassador to Indonesia for consultations after two Australians were among eight drug smugglers executed by firing squad early Wednesday.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott called the executions "cruel and unnecessary" because both men, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, had been "fully rehabilitated" during a decade in prison.
Canberra’s National Portrait Gallery has taken down an image of Indonesian President Joko Widodo following the execution of two Australian drug smugglers, saying it feared for the artwork’s safety.
Andrew Chan, 31, and Myuran Sukumaran, 34, were shot by firing squad in Indonesia on Wednesday over their role in the so-called “Bali Nine” heroin smuggling ring.
The executions of the two Australians, along with five other foreigners and one Indonesian, went ahead despite international criticism and calls for mercy from Canberra.
National Portrait Gallery director Angus Trumble said in a statement late yesterday that he had removed the portrait of Jokowi, as he is popularly known, given the strength of feeling about the executions.
“My feeling yesterday, on Wednesday morning, was that in view of the circumstances and our operations, and my best assessment of the risk of damage to the work of art, it was necessary to remove it from 
public display,” he said in a statement.

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