Melbourne Muso Cancels Bali Gigs Over Aussie Executions

Victorian singer-songwriter David Franciosa has joined a growing chorus of condemnation focused on Indonesia over the imminent execution of Bali Nine smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, cancelling two planned corporate appearances on the island in protest, it has been reported.

According to Fairfax, 39-year-old Franciosa — who was the co-writer of Vanessa Amorosi's 2008 single Perfect — was to perform at two hotel events in August, but has since pulled the plug on both in solidarity with the resurgent #boycottbali hashtag campaign on Twitter, which calls for Aussies to cancel travel and business plans in Indonesia.

"How can I visit a country that's going to murder our own citizens?" Franciosa said in an interview with The Age.

"It's not just tourism, but people need to reconsider doing business with this country. It's about human rights. Our voices might be heard louder together."

Though, at the time of writing, there has been a conspicuous absence of musicians lending their support to the hashtag on social media, one identity who is predictably right on-board is Ben Quilty, the artist mastermind behind the Mercy Campaign — which did generate heavy industry involvement.

The hashtag has not been without its detractors, who largely argue that to boycott Bali is to punish an entire nation's economy for the will and decisions of a powerful few, which — at the risk of toeing conjecture — could at least provide a partial explanation for why the same artists who publicly sought mercy for Chan and Sukumaran would be hesitant to support a measure with such potentially wide-reaching effects on the general Balinese population.

Interestingly, the #boycottbali hashtag actually dates back several years, having existed in one form or another since mid-2011, when it was first used on Twitter in protest against the treatment of exported livestock.