Media Alert: Bali executions, Toyne in spotlight.

The six young Australians facing death by firing squad in Indonesia, and Northern Territory Attorney-General Peter Toyne, were the focus of a rally in Darwin’s Raintree Park yesterday.

The four latest Aussies on death row in Indonesia – the youngest 19, the eldest 23 - learned earlier this week that they would be executed for trying to smuggle 8.3kg of heroin from Bali to Australia.

Rally organiser Fiona Clarke, of the drug law-reform group the Network Against Prohibition, said that because the Australian Federal Police instigated the investigation into the Bali Nine, Australia should have a role in deciding the ultimate outcome of the case.

“The penalty is barbaric. Excessive punishment, even where the offender knew of the likely penalty, is unfair. Every Australian should be calling on the government to intervene immediately,” Ms Clarke told the rally.

“These are six young people who made a mistake, a mistake which the AFP allowed to continue to its deadly conclusion. Death by firing-squad for these young Australian is nothing more than judicial mass-murder.”

The arrests were made after the father of 20-year-old Scott Rush, one of the four who originally received a life sentence that has now been upgraded to the death penalty on appeal, told the AFP that he suspected his son was smuggling drugs.

Another NAP member criticised outgoing Health Minister Peter Toyne, who he said was a “failure” because of the controversial “Drug House” Legislation he introduced in 2002.

The spokesman said Toyne’s legislation had failed to halt the supply or availability of illicit substances in the NT.

“All Toyne succeeded in doing was dragging Darwin into the War on Drugs, and having 65-year-old grandmother Margot Laughton jailed after she was set up by a plainclothes cop,” he said.

“Toyne should not be allowed to slink off into the shadows with his parliamentary pension.”

The rally was the NAP’s 29^th Smoke-in for Human Rights and the 30th Smoke-in, the last for the year will be on November 11.