Awaiting justice / Photo Nicolas Souyris

Imagine you are standing in line at customs, with innocent holiday thoughts of sun and sand in your head.

Suddenly, a customs agent latches onto your arm and shuttles you aside to a small room down a darkened hallway.

You don’t worry, because you have done nothing wrong. They grill you with questions for hours. No food, no water, just questions over and over.

Then you are told the shocking news: drugs were found in your baggage. You panic. This is not your home turf; your rights are not the same. Your demands for a phone call, lawyer or nourishment are ignored.

When thrown into an overcrowded and stinking jail, your nerves unravel; the nightmare has just begun. An alien legal system is hard to grasp and can treat people like animals, forced to live in unsanitary conditions for years.

You have to prove your innocence. In the end you are charged and placed into another dingy hole, faced with a sentence of several years to life – or even death.

The only comfort you ever receive is the two times a year your family can visit and bring you some necessities that are not provided – like toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, hair brush, writing material and some articles of clothing – basic materials you never thought you’d cherish so much.

Imprisoned Abroad

Across the world there are foreigners in jail for a variety of mistakes in judgment, and some are completely innocent.

Their families are suffering from the separation, worry and financial burdens imposed by their imprisonment. Many are impoverished and cannot visit or send the basic necessities that are needed.

Foreign Prisoner Support Service (FPSS) was established in 1995 as a volunteer prison service to families who have loved ones interned in other countries. They hope to promote understanding and human rights education for all people through the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

They are the ones to seek out to assist those in crisis and their families hoping to bring them home. They have campaigned for hundreds of cases, provided assistance for families who don’t understand the processes, and advocacy for those incarcerated.

The FPSS is a non-political body of volunteers that receives no government funding.

How you can help:

1. Become a “Save a life” member
2. Make contributions to FPSS or families of prisoners
3. Write to an inmate
4. Participate in campaigns, petitions and letters

Their FPSS webpage has information for each prisoner known to them.

Some of the pages are put together by family members, some by the prisoners themselves, and others just by news articles found. What can and cannot be done is listed, along with addresses to write letters, and where assistance for the families would be best suited.

Behind bars / Photo Liv Friis-larsen

Check the individual’s list or the prison details. Prisons have different standards as to being able to receive letters, items, visits or money.

Read the stories of the struggles that most have to endure. If you have no pity for the ones that have made mistakes, look at the ones who have to pick up the pieces and pay in emotional and financial burdens.

Other organizations working to help prisoners and promote basic human rights:

• Amnesty International — Working for human rights worldwide..
• Committee to Aid Human Rights Activits — Providing humanitarian aid in Cuba.
• Prisoners Abroard — Caring for Britons held overseas.
• Bryggan Abroad Sweden — For Swedes in foreign prisons.
• Fair Trials Abroad — Workng to ensure that EU citizens receive fair trials.
• International Relief Center, Inc. — Providing education and humanitarian opportunities in regions of Cambodia.
• Partners of Prisoners — A charity that helps relatives of prisoners.

Easing The Burden

Travelers who make mistakes are imprisoned for a variety of reasons in many different countries.

It is the innocent who get lost in the shuffle of the systems and politics whose cases are truly tragic. Their families are the biggest victims, having to find their way through massive and unfamiliar legal systems.

They are all too often left in the dark, trying to work out ways to help their loved ones no matter if they are guilty or innocent.

The non-profit organizations listed above are the ones that aid the real victim in most cases. See what you can do to help ease the pressures.

Even the smallest effort can mean all the difference in the world.

What are your thoughts on helping travelers imprisoned abroad? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Schapelle Corby aka The Ganja Queen / Photo Jason South

In 2000 a Canadian citizen, Nguyen Thi Hiep, was executed in Vietnam by firing squad. He was caught with five kilos of heroin in 1996.

In 2005 a Singapore/Australian citizen, Nguyen Tuong Van, age 25, was hung in Singapore for drug smuggling. Kevin John Barlow and Brian Geoffrey Chambers were hung in 1986 by Malaysian officials for drug trafficking.

Michael McAuliffe was hung in Malaysia in 1993 after serving eight years in jail for heroin trafficking.

In many countries the possession of drugs imposes tough penalties including death and life imprisonment.

Asian countries that have death penalty for drug trafficking: Bangladesh, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Laos, Oman, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam. The only other country is the world that has this penalty for large qualities is the United States.

These facts are enough to scare you into rethinking about drugs and traveling. But what if you end up wrongly convicted of a crime you didn’t commit?

The Setup

In Thailand there are dealers that have agreements with the police to inform when foreigners purchase drugs. In exchange they are allowed to continue dealing with no trouble.

Backpackers Judith Payne and James Gilligan both from England faced six years in jail for possessing half a kilo of dope. They were released from the Bangkok Hilton on bail on February 24, 2000 and made a daring escape through the jungle to flee the Thailand drug rap and crossed the border into Malaysia.

Judith had just met James (who admitted to having the drugs) the day of the raid and was charged for them being in her room.

Even coming in contact with drugs or smoking a joint in another country and then crossing the border can also land you in trouble. If your skin, clothes or bags swab with any residue you will be tested and questioned.

If drugs are found in your system you will more than likely be kept from entering the country and sent back from where you came.

What You Can Do:

The most important tip, of course, is not to knowingly cross a border with drugs. But how to avoid having drugs planted on you or your bags? Here are 5 ways you can protect yourself:

1. Lock your bag against tampering.

2. Don’t leave bags unattended.

In a few recorded cases, travelers were unaware someone had placed an item into their baggage. There are even some examples of baggage handlers from one country placing the drug into the bags, then in your destination country they take it out – or they are suppose to.

3. Don’t leave your bags in the care of anyone, even people you think you know.

An Irish woman is in a jail in Africa for coming to the rescue of a fellow church member that claimed he was having visa problems. He had sewed cocaine into the lining of a bag that he bought her.

No matter how well you know someone, it’s not worth testing that trust by having them watch your bags.

4. Never carry anything belonging to someone else in or out of a country.

Traveller Michael Loic Blanc of France is serving life in Bali for smuggling 3.8 kilos of hashish through Ngurah Rai Airport, Denpasar. He was holding a bag for a friend he met in Bali. He was a adventurer, always working his way around the world to learn and explore. Unfortunately, he made a mistake.

Backpacker Daisy Angus of England was sentenced to ten years in Mumbai, India jail for possessing and attempting to smuggle ten kilos of cannabis out of the country. She was arrested in 2002, spent four years in prison waiting for sentencing, then the case was overturned and she was released April 8, 2007.

She was doing a favour for a friend in holding a bag that she didn’t know what it contained.

5. Ensure that the medications you are bringing into the country are not illegal by contacting the embassy of the country you are traveling to before departure.

Just because your prescription may be legal in your own country, may not mean it’s allowed into another. If you’re at all unsure, it’s best to check before you’re being questioned about your heart medication in a back room of a foreign airport.

Further Resources

If stories don’t frighten you into thinking twice, watch the movie, “Midnight Express“. It shows pretty accurately the kind of conditions imposed throughout Southeast Asia for drug offenses.

Books not for the faint-hearted that will leave an impression:

• The Last Executioner is the story of Chavoret Janiboon who was personally responsible for executing 55 prison inmates in the Bangkok Hilton.
• Hell In Barbados is the story of Terrance Donaldson’s struggle with a drug addiction and how he landed in Glendair Prison of the Caribbean.
• Welcome to Hell is the autobiography of Irishman Colin Martin’s struggle inside the Bangkok Hilton.
• The Damage Done and 4000 Days are both written by Australian Warren Fellows telling of his twelve years inside some of Thailand’s prisons.

Your trip is all about the freedom of the road and traveling to your heart’s content. Don’t get so relaxed that you fail to guard for dangers on the road.

Do you have any further tips for avoiding arrest for drug possession? Share your thoughts in the comments!