An ambulance (center, right) transports the body of executed Dutchman Ang Kiem Soei from Nusakambangan prison in Cilacap on Sunday, as Indonesia carried out its first executions under new President Joko Widodo by firing squad on one local woman and foreigners hailing from Brazil, the Netherlands, Vietnam, Malawi and Nigeria (AFP Photo/Dida Nuswantara)
Canberra is pursuing efforts to save two convicted Australians from the firing squad in Indonesia, Foreign Minister Julia Bishop said Monday, after Jakarta executed six drug offenders on the weekend.
"The prime minister (Tony Abbott) has written again to President (Joko) Widodo," Bishop said.
"The Australian government will continue to make representations at the highest level."
Brazil and the Netherlands recalled their ambassadors from Indonesia and expressed fury Sunday after Jakarta put to death two of their citizens along with four other drug offenders from Vietnam, Malawi, Nigeria and Indonesia.
The six were the first people executed under new President Widodo.
Indonesia has tough anti-drugs laws and Widodo, who took office in October, has disappointed rights activists by voicing support for capital punishment despite his image as a reformist.
He defended the executions, saying drugs ruin lives.
A spokesman for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said she was "distressed and outraged" after Indonesia ignored her last-ditch pleas and put to death Marco Archer Cardoso Moreira, who was convicted of smuggling cocaine into Indonesia in 2004.
"Using the death penalty, which is increasingly rejected by the international community, seriously affects relations between our countries," the spokesman said in a statement.
Meanwhile Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said the Netherlands had also recalled its ambassador over the execution of Dutchman Ang Kiem Soei, and in a statement described all six deaths as "terribly sad".
"My heart goes out to their families, for whom this marks a dramatic end to years of uncertainty," Koenders said. "The Netherlands remains opposed to the death penalty."
Widodo's stance has raised fears for other foreigners sentenced to death, particularly two Australians who were part of the "Bali Nine" group caught trying to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia in 2005.
One of the pair, Myuran Sukumaran, had his clemency appeal rejected last month but authorities say he will be executed with fellow Australian Andrew Chan as they committed their crime together.
Chan is still awaiting the outcome of his clemency appeal.
Bishop skirted round questions of Australia withdrawing diplomats from Jakarta, noting they were required to stay to plead with the government.
She said the foreign ministry had recently replied to her own letter "rejecting our representations on the basis that Indonesia claims it is facing a crisis in terms of drug trafficking and it believes that the death penalty should apply."
"It is a long-standing position of Australian governments that we oppose the death penalty and we oppose the execution of Australian nationals by another country," she said.
"I don't believe executing people is the answer to solving the drug problem.
"However, this is Indonesian law and it is a sober reminder that drug related offences carry very, very heavy penalties in other countries, particularly in Indonesia."
Widodo pledged in December there would be no pardons for drug traffickers on death row, including foreigners.
On Sunday he defended the death penalty in a Facebook post.
"The war against the drug mafia should not be half-hearted measures, because drugs have really ruined the good life of the drug users and their families," said Widodo.
"There is no happiness in life to be gained from drug abuse. The country must be present and fight with drug syndicates head-on," he added.
"A healthy Indonesia is Indonesia without drugs."
The 53-year-old Brazilian, who was caught with drugs stashed in the frame of his paraglider at Jakarta airport, and the 62-year-old Dutchman were executed on Nusakambangan Island, home to a high-security prison, off the main island of Java.
A Nigerian, Daniel Enemuo; Namaona Denis, from Malawi; and an Indonesian woman, Rani Andriani, were executed at the same location.
The sixth convict, Vietnamese woman Tran Thi Bich Hanh, was executed in the Boyolali district in central Java.
They were all caught attempting to smuggle narcotics apart from the Dutchman, who was sentenced to death for operating a huge factory producing the drug ecstasy.
All had their appeals to the president for clemency rejected last month.
Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said Hanoi had asked Indonesia "to ensure Vietnamese citizens' legal rights and consider reducing their sentences in a humanitarian way" since Hanh's arrest in 2011. But it was unclear whether they had asked for her sentence to be commuted.
Vietnam also uses the death penalty for drug offences and has sentenced dozens of foreigners over such crimes, although it has been decades since a foreign national was executed in the communist country.
Jakarta had an unofficial moratorium on executions for several years from 2008 but resumed capital punishment again in 2013. There were no executions last year.
Following Sunday's executions, the number of people on death row for drugs-related offences stood at 60, around half of whom are foreigners, said a spokesman for the national narcotics agency.
Also on death row is British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford. She was sentenced to death in 2013 after being caught trying to smuggle cocaine into Bali. AFP
