Karl Stefanovic criticises the #SaveOurBoys video: 'There's clearly an agenda there.'

As the expected execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran looms, a group of prominent Australians has banded together to issue a desperate plea to our Prime Minister.

Update:

Karl Stefanovic has dismissed the the celebrity #SaveOurBoys appeal, saying the campaign ‘missed the mark’.

After viewing the video (scroll down to view) for the first time on this morning’s Today Show, Karl said that while some elements of the message were ‘fantastic’, he resented the implicated that Prime Minister Tony Abbott had not done all he could to campaign for the clemency of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

“There’s almost an aggressive connotation there that I think is completely and utterly wrong,” he said.

“I think there’s clearly an agenda there of some kind and I just don’t think it’s worth acknowledging at this point.”

Mamamia columnist and author Rebecca Sparrow also criticised the campaign.

“Regardless of your feelings towards PM Tony Abbott – I think directing your anger at HIM is ridiculous and also offensive,” she wrote in a Facebook post this morning.

The Mercy Campaign also distanced themselves from #SaveOurBoys on the grounds that it is inconsistent with their message: that the only person with the power to grant clemency for the Bali 9 duo is Indonesian Prime Minister Joko Widodo.

Other Australians express their concerns about the video (post continues after gallery):

Brendan Cowell, who featured in the campaign, has tweeted an apology.

Mamamia previously wrote:

In a video going viral today, a group of Australian celebrities — including Geoffrey Rush, Guy Pearce and Brencan Cowell — plead with Prime Minister to fly to Indonesia and make a last-ditch bid to save Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran from execution.

The Bali nine ringleaders ho have been told they will be executed after midnight on Tuesday after their 2005 drug smuggling attempted in Bali, Fairfax Media reports.

“Mr Abbott, please do your best to get these boys home,” says Australian actor Bryan Brown in the moving video.

“Tony, if you had any courage and compassion you’d go to Indonesia and bring these boys home,” Cowell says. “Show some balls.”

Guy Pearce simply declares: “I stand for Mercy.”

Also starring in the video — which was uploaded to Vimeo by Anthony N Hayes — are Matt Le Nevez, Deborah Mailman, Peter Helliar, Luke Hemsworth, Marieke Hardy and Masterchef winner Emma Dean.

The video urges Australians to use the hashtag #saveourboys to build further support for the Bali duo.

But Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has defended Tony Abbott after the release of the video.

She said said she had received a letter from Indonesia’s foreign minister on Monday night but that it offered no hope of a reprieve for Chan and Sukumaran.

Related content:

Andrew Chan weds his girlfriend in prison.

Here’s what the Bali duo will spend their last day doing.

One final act of defiance by the Bali 9 pair.

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