In Australia, a still-fascinated public is divided over the homecoming of a woman who served nine years in prison in Indonesia for smuggling marijuana on a surfing trip.<\/b>
\nSYDNEY, Australia \u2014 Schapelle Corby left Australia for Bali in 2004 as a beach girl, another Gold Coast surfer who said she was just seeking a vacation and some waves.
On Sunday morning, she finally returned home, but as a convicted drug trafficker \u2014 and one of Australia\u2019s most well-known, if not favorite, criminals.
A mob of reporters and television cameras greeted her arrival in Brisbane just after 5 a.m. \u2014 and less than 24 hours after she created an Instagram account, tens of thousands of followers had already signed up for a glimpse of her new life.
\u201cThere\u2019s not very many Australian drug traffickers that you could say are media stars, \u201d said Anthony Lambert, a senior lecturer in cultural studies at Macquarie University. \u201cShe\u2019s a celebrity prisoner, which is a relatively new phenomenon.\u201d
\u201cOur Schapelle, \u201d as some Australians call her, has long been seen as more than just a criminal or \u2014 as some consider her \u2014 a victim. Through the years, Ms. Corby, 39, has reflected Australia\u2019s fears and fascinations with Southeast Asia, and her case has raised issues of gender and social class.
\u201cI think half the population saw themselves in her, saw her in a bad situation in no fault of their own, \u201d said Lauren Rosewarne, a senior lecturer in social science at the University of Melbourne. \u201cI think the other half looked down at her, saw her as the equivalent of white trash.\u201d
The case began with Ms. Corby\u2019s 2004 arrest on charges of smuggling a few pounds of marijuana into Indonesia in her boogie-board bag. Scrutiny in the news media intensified with her trial, where she professed her innocence but received a 20-year sentence, and continued through her tabloid-chronicled stretch in a Balinese prison, and now her deportation and return.
Ms. Corby\u2019s interviews from behind bars, and her 2006 memoir, endeared her to many Australians, and her government put enormous diplomatic pressure on Indonesia to reduce her sentence, allowing her to leave the country ahead of her initial 20-year prison sentence.
Her family pulled the news media close to help campaign for her freedom, but has since tried to push the reporters and photographers away. On Sunday, the family released a statement thanking supporters and asking again to be left alone.
But the past week has shown just how unlikely that may be.
In Indonesia over the past few days, as news spread of the imminent deportation of Ms. Corby, who was paroled in 2014, a crowd of local and Australian journalists camped outside the villa in Kuta where she had been serving her parole, in hopes of catching a glimpse of her. All week, Australian television news programs have featured video clips of Ms. Corby swimming, wandering through a market and sharing meals with her boyfriend.
Australian newscasters also filmed Ms. Corby\u2019s mother as she dragged in a trash receptacle outside the Corby family\u2019s home in Logan City, Queensland. In one video, journalists ran alongside Mercedes Corby, Schapelle Corby\u2019s sister, as someone asked: \u201cHow\u2019s Schapelle?\u201d
\u201cBetter if you would leave her alone, \u201d she said.
In Indonesia, Ms. Corby\u2019s departure has mostly been greeted with a sentiment of \u201cgood riddance.\u201d
\u201cIf you talk to people in the markets or in food stalls, no one knows about it, \u201d said Anton Muhajir, who writes a blog on environmental issues and current events in Indonesia, and has reported on the Corby case for foreign news organizations. \u201cThis just doesn\u2019 t have the same attraction in Bali as it does in Australia.\u201d
Indonesians who have followed the case say that Australians have made too much of it, managing to insult Indonesia in the process. \u201cI\u2019 m very surprised at how the Australians have overreacted to this, \u201d said Retno Napitupulu, a bank worker in Jakarta. \u201cThey have to follow our laws.\u201d
Indeed, Australian arguments over Ms. Corby\u2019s case can also be seen as arguments about their Asian neighbor. Among those who believe in her innocence, Indonesia \u2014 a large Muslim country that is one of Australia\u2019s closest and most important neighbors \u2014 tends to be cast as the villain.
In fact, Ms. Corby may have escaped a death sentence because of the timing of her conviction. It came during the first year of the presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia\u2019s first directly elected president, and she benefited from official eagerness to turn the page on more than three decades of authoritarian rule.
In contrast, two Australian men were among seven foreigners executed on drug convictions in 2015, after a new president, Joko Widodo, said that Indonesia faced a drug abuse crisis that amounted to a \u201cnational emergency.\u201d
Experts have pointed out that Ms. Corby and the continued interest in her are partly a function of gender and race. \u201cSchapelle Corby was a white woman, which really goes a long way in Western countries\u201d toward casting a person accused of a crime as a victim, Dr. Lambert said.
At the same time, the obsession may reflect the way some Australians \u2014 or at least Australian news outlets \u2014 view Indonesia, and the ways those views are evolving.
\u201cIt was very na\u00efve for a lot of Australians to think that they could somehow impact the legal system of another country, \u201d Dr. Lambert said. \u201cIn some ways, it\u2019s a little bit racist because it\u2019s imposing our ethic or code.\u201d
\u201cWe weren\u2019 t really prepared to see Bali and Indonesia in terms of its own sovereignty, which is something we\u2019 ve learned, \u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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