We understand your response and we hope we can convince you that we don’t have any intention to disrespect the Indonesian government or the minister of law and Human Rights, but instead, that you will come to feel that such an interview is worthy and required.

As you have seen, a lot of media are interested in covering Schapelle, and this will not stop until an interview is conducted. We have a journalist we can trust and when Schapelle is ready to speak, we want her to do an interview. We don’t trust other media because they often twist facts and often lie.

The selected journalist will fully understand Schapelle’s parole condition and fully respects the Indonesian government.

We hope you can understand that Schapelle has suffered a lot of pain and trauma from the media. Since the day she was released, they were climbing the walls and roofs to get candid photos, pretending to be family members, and camping out in front of the gate.

The interview, however, would not just help Schapelle. All of our family members have been followed and chased. From a week before Schapelle’s release, we were already being chased by the media on motorbikes, and the same thing was happening to our three children.

There’s nothing else Schapelle wants except to get back to her life, but that won’t happen until an interview is conducted. The media wants to hear Schapelle’s voice, and she’ll always be haunted until they get it. She however is not yet entirely mentally healthy, and we believe that having a one on one interview conducted by a trusted journalist, someone she is comfortable with, is the only way to do it.

If you want to meet that journalist to interview him, that is possible.

The interview will be very much controlled and won’t be broadcast live, and we’ll invite Bapas officers to be present during the interview.

If Schapelle doesn’t speak within the near future, our family members will be forced to speak on behalf of Schapelle. This has already happened a lot to our family in Australia, and it won’t happen within a controlled environment — we want it to be Schapelle who speaks so that the interview can be controlled.

We say once again that the interview won’t be negative about Indonesia.

Schapelle will not be paid for the interview; media reports about the payment are completely wrong.

Below are the general things we will raise in the interview: family support, mental health, future plans, family relations and our reunion after the release, how she survived in the prison, and her feelings when her freedom was taken, her life before the arrest in 2004, the loss of her father, what happened at the Australian airport on the day she departed, and thanking all her supporters.

We also would like to say why we’re still staying at the villa and not in our home in Kuta: we want to provide a transition to Schapelle’s normal life free from stress, and we also don’t want to create an uncomfortable situation for our neighbourhood. Since the day of her release, there have been many groups of journalists in front of the fence around our house.

We are not yet ready to return to our home because it will be inconvenient for the community surrounding the house.

We’re grateful for being allowed to stay in the villa for a period of time until we can arrange better security.

We feel such an interview is much needed by Schapelle, so she can focus on her freedom and get her life back.

To assist in your consideration of our request, we attach a written statement.

Sincerely yours,

Wayan Widyartha

Mercedes Corby