Protesters attend a rally against death penalty outside the presidential palace in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Tuesday. Credit:AP Many of these are filing eleventh hour clemency pleas with President Joko Widodo, even though some still maintain their innocence. However preparations for the executions are intensifying at Cilacap in Central Java, the gateway to the penal island of Nusakambangan, where the prisoners will be shot dead by special police known as BRIMOB around midnight on Friday. Six trucks carrying BRIMOB personnel were transported to the penal island on Tuesday night and about 1400 military and police are securing the island. The families of the condemned are being granted last minute access to their loved ones and religious counsellors are being appointed to oversee their final hours.

Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at an ASEAN meeting in July. Credit:AP Community Legal Aid Institute director Ricky Gunawan said he hoped the international outrage provoked by the executions would rival that of last year, when Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan were among those killed. He said this would show that western countries condemned the executions out of principle and not just when their citizens were facing the firing squad. Police oversee preparations for the executions in Cilacap, the closest town to Nusakambangan where the prisoners will be shot. Credit:Wagino Mr Gunawan, who was with the prisoners when they were served with the papers marking the beginning of the 72 hour countdown on Tuesday, said the Africans believed they had been unfairly targeted.

Eight of the 14 condemned are from Africa. Police oversee preparations for the executions in Cilacap, the closest town to Nusakambangan where the prisoners will be shot. Credit:Wagino "They said the Indonesian government just hate us, they want to kill us because we are black," Mr Gunawan said. His client Nigerian Humphrey Jefferson Ejike Eleweke, who is seeking clemency from the president but maintains his innocence, refused to sign the notification. Pakistani death row prisoner Zulfiqar Ali was transferred from hospital to Nusakambangan ahead of his planned execution. Credit:Wagino

While Mr Eleweke hoped for a miracle, Mr Gunawan said, he was aware it was unlikely given Indonesians blame Africans for bringing much of the illegal drugs into the country. Mr Eleweke's trial judgement included the statement that "black-skinned people from Nigeria" are under surveillance by police because they are suspected of drug trafficking in Indonesia. Police prepare for the imminent executions of prisoners at Nusakambangan. Credit:Wagino His case was one of those highlighted in the Amnesty International report When Justice Fails which raised concerns about his lack of access to a lawyer at the time of his arrest, torture and the impartiality of the court process. Mr Gunawan said that legally those prisoners who had filed for presidential clemency should be taken off the execution list because they had not exhausted all their legal avenues.

"But whether the Attorney-General follows that is a different question." Four Chinese nationals are understood to have been taken off the execution list at the last minute due to further legal avenues, with their grateful families cancelling their farewell visit to Indonesia., Reprieve Australia president Julian McMahon, who represented Sukumaran and Chan, urged people to email the Indonesian Embassy requesting clemency for prisoners facing imminent execution. This year's executions have been dogged by evidence that many of those facing the firing squad may have been victims of unfair trials, corruption and torture. "We say it is unthinkable that executions would proceed in such circumstances," Mr McMahon wrote.

The National Commission on Violence Against Women, Komnas Perempuan, asked the president to grant clemency to Indonesian Merri Utami, the only woman facing execution. "Merri Utami is an ex-migrant worker who is a victim of domestic violence and was forced to work overseas and was then trapped as a courier by an international drug syndicate," said commission head Azriana. Merri Utami was arrested at Jakarta airport in 2001 with 1.1 kilograms of heroin in her handbag, which she said had been given to her by "Jerry", a man who purported to be a Canadian and had promised to marry her. The case bears remarkable similarities to that of Filipino Mary-Jane Veloso, who was due to be executed last year, but won a surprise reprieve after her alleged human trafficker handed herself in to police in Manila just hours before Veloso was due to be killed. "International drug syndicates target female migrant workers because they are young, poor and uneducated and victims of domestic violence," Komnas Perempuan said.

Meanwhile diplomatic pressure from Pakistan intensified over the pending execution of Zulfiqar Ali, with the Indonesian Ambassador summoned to the Foreign Office in Islamabad. The deputy head of mission of the Pakistan Embassy, Zahid Raza, told Fairfax Media he was expecting further high level dialogue between the countries. "We have been saying all along the trial had been quite unfair and did not meet international standards," he said Mr Raza said an internal report conducted by the Human Rights and Law Ministry under the previous government found Mr Zulfiqar was innocent. "We don't know what happened," he said.

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