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span class="inline inline-center">As the day of the execution of two Australian drug smugglers, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, draws closer, more demands have been addressed to President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo to spare their lives.

Sukumaran, 33, and Chan, 31, have been detained at Kerobokan Penitentiary for almost 10 years. They are two of nine Australians, the so-called Bali Nine, convicted for an attempt to smuggle more than 8 kilograms of heroin from Bali to Australia in 2005.

They are now awaiting execution, slated for this month, as their clemency pleas were officially rejected by President Jokowi and a second request for case reviews was rejected by the Denpasar District Court.

But the latest news about their executions did not deter fellow prisoners in Kerobokan from showing genuine support. They wrote letters to President Jokowi saying they would be willing to take the places of Chan and Sukumaran on death row, if that was permitted by Indonesian law.

'€œHe is a kind, caring person and so helpful to all people here. He is not '€˜using and playing'€™ with drugs anymore. Every day, he is in church to teach us about mercy and kindness. Bapak President, please consider forgiving him,'€ wrote Martin Jamanuna, portraying Chan in his letter.

Rico Ricardo, another inmate, also expressed his support for Chan. '€œIf the honorable President insists on implementing the death sentence of Chan, I, Rico Ricardo, am ready to replace Chan,'€ Ricardo wrote. Francois Jacques Giuily, a French inmate, wrote a similar letter.

Support also went to Sukumaran. '€œThank Myuran. Nothing is impossible in the eyes of God. Don'€™t give up,'€ said Rusmono.

The American Friends Service Committee, a US-based religious organization, also sent a letter to the President through The Jakarta Post last weekend. The letter, addressed to President Jokowi, was later delivered to the convicts'€™ lawyer and families, as well as to local and international media, including the Australian media.

'€œOur organization is deeply troubled by the impending execution. We believe that the death penalty is excessive. With deep respect and humility, we request that you, as the new President of Indonesia, demonstrate to the world the enlightened values of your country'€™s democracy by showing mercy to these two worthy individuals by offering them a pardon,'€ the Prison Watch program director, Bonnie Kerness, said in the letter.

At the Yale Divinity School in Connecticut on Saturday, Ronald Jenkins, professor of theater in Wesleyan University and Yale Divinity School'€™s Institute for Sacred Music, moderated a panel on prison and the arts dedicated to the death-row duo.

'€œWe want Chan and Sukumaran to know that the international community fully supports them,'€ Jenkins, who conducted a theater program at Kerobokan with Chan and Sukumaran four years ago, told the Post.

In the convicts'€™ homeland, senior religious leaders on Sunday called on Indonesia to show mercy.

Sydney'€™s Catholic Archbishop Anthony Fisher and Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu Mohammad called on President Jokowi to save the men.

'€œOur request today is for clemency or a commuted sentence for Andrew and Myuran so as to allow them to be further rehabilitated. To execute would prematurely end these lives, robbing both them and our communities of the opportunity for ongoing repentance and rehabilitation,'€ the religious leaders said in a joint statement as quoted by AFP.

Last week, the Foreign Ministry announced that it had received an official notification from the Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO), saying that Chan and Sukumaran would be executed later this month by a firing squad. The specific time and location of the execution has not yet been decided.

Apart from the two Australians, the AGO has revealed its plan to execute another nine prisoners, including Rodrigo Gularte of Brazil, Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso of the Philippines, Serge Areski Atlaoui of France, Martin Anderson of Ghana and Raheem Agbaje Salami of Nigeria. Four Indonesian convicts will also be executed.