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HUMAN RIGHTS FOR EACH PERSON REGARDLESS OF AGE, RACE, RELIGION OR POLITICS
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Michael Loic Blanc
A french Citizen detained in Indonesia.
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Official Website: French Version
Click Here
English Translation
Click Here
Financial Support
Chéques payable to "Support for Michaël Blanc".
Attention: Mr. J.C. White
509, street of Geneva
74130 Bonneville
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Case History [translated from French]
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History
WHITE Michaël, a sad history
Michaël Blanc was born in 1973 in Bonneville city from Haute-Savoie, a department known for its ski resorts in the East of France. Its family is established for a long time in the area, her father is a carpenter who deals with the small family company which dates from the time of the grandfather of Michaël. His/her mother worked in administrative tasks and of secretariat. It received a good formation having led to the certificate of occupational qualification at the prestigious hotel school of Chambéry (Haute-Savoie). It worked as cook in various restaurants and hotels of France, Switzerland and Belgium during some time. It then decides to visit countries of overseas. After a stay in Guadaloupe, it travels to India and finishes to remain in Bali, in Indonesia, where it works especially in a shipyard while helping his friend, that it met on the spot, in the small trade of clothing which she has in Kuta, Bali. It is for the purchase of goods intended for this trade that it undertakes voyages in India.
In 1999, the 27th December, Michaël arrives at the international airport of Bali coming from India. In its luggage, in addition to its personal effects, it transports complete equipment of plunged underwater which entrusted to him a French friend that it had met with the beach of Goma, in India.
Customs officers and members of the police force of the airport stop it under the charge that the cylinders of compressed air of the equipment of plunged contain a "illicit substance", in fact, 3800 grams of haschich.
The circumstances of the interpellation in absence of any independent witness, without interpretation or translation, the opening of the bottles out of the presence of shown and the fact that it pled as of this moment its innocence make that its inculpation appears very irregular according to the Western standards.
It was imprisoned during the instruction of its case and it completely informed its family of the gravity of her case only towards the end of August 2000. His/her mother, Helene Touzey, cancelled all its engagements and settled in Bali, where it is always.
The lawsuit of Michaël take place in November 2000. The prosecutor asked for the capital punishment but the Court of Denpasar decided on November 16, 2000 to condemn it to detention with perpetuity. It was 27 years old at this time.
The last meeting of its lawsuit to the Court of Denpasar was recorded by French television (TF1). The diffusion of the images of this last meeting and its judgment at one hour of great listening a few days later had an enormous repercussion in the French public: thousands of messages of sympathy were addressed to its family and Michaël Blanc became day at the following day a "cause famous" in France.
The family of Michaël, with the collaboration of a made up team local lawyers (indonésiens) and French lawyers, did not save effort to make return justice indonésienne on what it still regards as a skewed and inequitable lawsuit. Here the chronology of these efforts:
27.12.1999 -
Michaël stopped in Bali
16.11.2000 -
Life sentence
08.02.2001 -
Call rejected during a session of the Court of Appeal without convocation of Michaël or its representatives.
15.09.2001 -
Cassation rejected by the supreme Court under the same conditions: absence of Michaël or its representatives
17.11.2001 -
Ask grace presented by his/her mother in the name of Michaël and addressed to Mrs. Megawati Soekarnoputri, President of the Republic of Indonesia.
17.08.2002 -
At the time of the national feastday, 35,524 condemned profited from reductions of sorrow. Among them, the criminal "Tommy" Suharto (wire junior by the former dictator, condemned for the assassination of judge Syafiuddin Kartasasmita) and his partner in businesses "Bob" Hasan. Michaël profited from no reduction of sorrow.
06.12.2002 -
For "Idul Fitri" (fine of the Ramadan), again some 36,600 condemned prisoners profited from reductions of sorrow, among which again "Tommy" Suharto and "Bob" Hasan. Michaël profited from no reduction of sorrow.
17.08.2003 -
Once again, a great number of condemned profited from measurements of grace or reduction from sorrow. Michaël still does not form part of it.
26.11.2003 -
Fitri more did not bring a reduction of sorrow to Michaël.
The family of Michaël and Association "Support for White Michaël" - ASMB still entrust in justice indonésienne. They keep their confidence with the words of the Ambassador of Indonesia in France, S.E. Adian Silalahi, which visited them to Bonneville on August 3, 2001, and which engaged in front of the local and regional French authorities, like front the press and French television, to personally give to Mrs. Megawati Soekarnoputri the request of grace for Michaël in the name of the family and of the French people. It also expressed on this occasion the sincere will of its government to find an exit happy with this sad history which serves the image of Indonesia among the French. Yes, they keep their confidence but cannot prevent oneself from being disturbed when they read each day in the international edition of the big national daily indonésien "The Jakarta Post" how the things occur for other prisoners. It is very difficult for them not to compare the lawsuits and the sorrows for similar offences. And then they doubt.
Key figures like Jacques Chirac, French President, Bertrand Delanoe, Mayor of Paris, Ben Bella, former President of L 'Algeria and personal friend of President Soekarno, father of Megawati, were addressed to the President Megawati Soekarnoputri to support the request in grace of Michaël Blanc. Without result nor answer no to date.
One can add that the family and Association learned, of independent sources, that Michaël is very well considered by the other prisoners, the guards and even the Head warden of Kerobokan. Its control was without reproach and it always contributes to improve the living conditions and the moral one of its fellows-prisoner.
The family and the association of support endeavour to discover why Michaël suffers from this ostracism and why the personalities which took its defense received, to date, no answer.
Michaël forever be neither drug addict nor trafficker. He does not have hidden fortune nor of banking account and he gained hardly what to live like many young people of his generation. What plays against him? Why prolong this situation which can only envenimer the relations between Indonesia and France? Why the government indonésien repudiates its own ambassador with the eyes of the French public opinion?
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FREEDOM IS A RIGHT OF ALL HUMAN BEINGS IN A WORLD WHERE LIFE IS VALUED AND PEACE MAY FINALLY BE A POSSABILITY
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Just in case you forgot - read the Universal declaration of Human Rights
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