You can't abuse human rights in defiance of international law and then criticise others for doing the same. How did this weaken our ability to plead for mercy for our own citizens? Sunil Badami writes.

"Only a pathetically weak leader would execute the powerless to prove his strength."

That's Fairfax journalist Peter Hartcher's assessment of the cruel and inhumane way in which Jokowi put humanity and judicial rigour aside in the lead-up to the executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

He's right.

But substitute the words "people smuggler" for "drug smuggler" and ask yourself this: how is Indonesia's unjust, hard-line, domestically focused mistreatment of foreigners any different to ours?

Australia too has refused to acknowledge the humanity of foreigners; Australia too has mistreated people in defiance of international law; Australia too has defended its policies using hyperbolic language - all on the basis that punishing a few will save many more.

But will Jokowi's actions stop drug smuggling any more than Australia's mistreatment of refugees and their children will prevent people smuggling or stop people fleeing war and unrest?

In the end, Indonesia isn't the only country punishing the weak and the powerless for the sake of a weak and powerless leader's grasp at popularity.

Something to remember in the next few days is that you lose any claim to moral superiority if you only selectively choose to be compassionate. Human rights are universal, not optional. Many in Australia have criticised Indonesia for pleading clemency for its own condemned nationals overseas - but you can't abuse human rights in defiance of international law and then criticise others for doing the same.

As Tony Abbott said today:

It was completely unacceptable for Indonesia to proceed as it did when critical legal processes were yet to run their course, raising serious questions about Indonesia's commitment to the rule of law. These executions significantly weaken Indonesia's ability to plead mercy for its own citizens facing execution around the world.

So what of our refusal to allow for appeals for refugees, to retrospectively change the law, to ignore refoulement contraventions, to designate unborn children "illegals", to excise the Australian mainland from Australia's migration zone?

When the Prime Minister boasts that his Government won't "succumb to the cries of human rights lawyers", why should he expect Jokowi's government to do this?

And what of our casual treatment of Indonesia's borders in the name of our "sovereign" ones? How did this weaken our ability to plead for mercy for our own citizens? And how do our human rights abuses affect our ability to lecture others on theirs - a particularly pertinent point, given our bid to join the UN Human Rights Council, even as the new Sri Lankan government accuses the Abbott Government of being silent about the Rajapaksa regime's human rights abuses in return for cooperation on Australia's asylum seeker policy?

What happened in Indonesia last night was terrible - but so too is what is happening every day in our detention centres and on the seas. The same secrecy, the same defiant cruelty, the same indignantly self-righteous sophistry.

Chan and Sukumaran definitely did not deserve such a punishment for a foolish mistake they made as young men, but why do children and babies, brought by their parents or born in detention, deserve the punishment meted out to them by the Australian Government and its contractors - a life spent in detention without rights or adequate medical and other care?

If only the Government acted as quickly on reports of sexual abuse in detention as it has in regards to these poor Australian men.

And if only our Government - whether Liberal or Labor - recognised that you only have moral authority if you exercise and respect, rather than dodge or ignore, your moral obligations.

If only. It's a tragedy for all of us, whether Indonesian or Australian.

Sunil Badami is a writer, broadcaster and performer. Visit his website.