We, the undersigned, petition Your Excellency to show clemency in the cases of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. We note this request is but the latest in a series of appeals for your intervention from concerned onlookers around the world – from foreign powers to global celebrities to great numbers of ordinary citizens. We wish fervently to add to this pressure.

We are a handful of the many millions – perhaps billions – around the world who dispute both the efficacy and the morality of the death penalty. While we understand that some people still believe execution serves a constructive purpose, we respectfully submit that in such cases it should be a penalty of last resort for unrepentant criminals of the worst kind. In this context, we wish to draw your attention once more to the complete rehabilitation of Chan and Sukumaran, and their good works while in prison.

We do not wish to minimise their crime, and we accept the reality of Indonesia’s much-discussed “drugs emergency” and the pressure this must place on you to show no mercy. However, we respectfully suggest that the political capital gained against your opponents at home must be balanced against the great cost of Indonesia appearing rigid, backward and violent to the rest of the world. Executing foreign citizens who attempted to carry drugs out of Indonesia will serve little practical purpose in the local war on drugs, while already there are calls on Australian social media for a blanket boycott of Indonesian products. We add our voices to those calls, and warn that the deaths of the Australians Chan and Sukumaran are likely to create a backlash that will be felt across Indonesia.