Singapore conducted its first execution of a woman in 19 years on Friday and its second hanging this week for drug trafficking despite calls for the city-state to cease capital punishment for drug-related crimes. Photo / AP
Singapore conducted its first execution of a woman in 19 years on Friday and its second hanging this week for drug trafficking despite calls for the city-state to cease capital punishment for drug-related crimes. Photo / AP
Singapore conducted its first execution of a woman in 19 years on Friday and its second hanging this week for drug trafficking despite calls for the city-state to cease capital punishment for drug-related crimes.
The execution has prompted outrage from the United Nations and human rights advocates, including billionaire Sir Richard Branson. Activists said another execution is planned next week.
Saridewi Djamani, 45, was sentenced to death in 2018 for trafficking about 31 grams of diamorphine, or pure heroin, the Central Narcotics Bureau said. It said the amount was “sufficient to feed the addiction of about 370 abusers for a week.”
Singapore’s laws mandate the death penalty for anyone convicted of trafficking more than 500 grams of cannabis and 15 grams of heroin.
Djamani’s execution came two days after that of a Singaporean man, Mohammed Aziz Hussain, 56, for trafficking around 50 grams of heroin.
The narcotics bureau said both prisoners were accorded due process, including appeals of their convictions and sentences and petitions for presidential clemency.
Human rights groups, international activists and the United Nations urged Singapore to halt executions for drug offenses and say there is increasing evidence it is ineffective as a deterrent. Singapore authorities insist capital punishment is important to halting drug demand and supply.
Sir Richard Branson. Photo / Getty Images
Human rights groups say it has executed 15 people for drug offenses since it resumed hangings in March 2022, an average of one a month.
Anti-death penalty activists said the last woman known to have been hanged in Singapore was 36-year-old hairdresser Yen May Woen, also for drug trafficking, in 2004.
The execution was carried out despite appeals from rights groups, who argue capital punishment has no proven deterrent effect on crime.
British billionaire Sir Richard Branson led calls to grant Djamani mercy.
“Shameful that Singapore’s leaders continue to hang people for nonviolent drug offences, joining countries like North Korea and Iran that still do so against evidence and better judgement,” he wrote on Twitter ahead of her execution.
“Small scale-drug traffickers need help, as most are bullied due to their circumstances. The death penalty is not a deterrent.
“Today, Singapore’s authorities hanged a man. On Friday, they plan to execute a woman. It’s time for Singapore’s killing spree to stop before its reputation is permanently damaged. It’s still not too late to grant mercy to Saridewi Djamani.”
Shameful that Singapore’s leaders continue to hang people for non-violent drug offences, joining countries like North Korea and Iran that still do so against evidence and better judgement.
Today, Singapore’s authorities hanged a man. On Friday, they plan to execute a woman. It’s time for Singapore’s killing spree to stop before its reputation is permanently damaged. It’s still not too late to grant mercy to Saridewi Djamani.
Amnesty International urged reform of the Singapore justice system.
“This week has cast a harsh and tragic spotlight on the complete lack of death penalty reform in Singapore,” said Amnesty International’s death penalty expert Chiara Sangiorgio.
“As most of the world turns its back on this cruel punishment, Singapore’s government continues down the path of executing people for drug-related crimes, violating international human rights law and standards.”
Transformative Justice Collective, a Singapore group that advocates for the abolishment of capital punishment, said a new execution notice has been issued to another prisoner for August 3, the fifth this year alone.
It said the prisoner is an ethnic Malay citizen who worked as a delivery driver before his arrest in 2016. He was convicted in 2019 of trafficking around 50 grams of heroin and his appeal was dismissed last year, it said.
The group said the man had maintained in his trial that he believed he was delivering contraband cigarettes for a friend to whom he owed money, and he didn’t verify the contents of the bag as he trusted his friend.
The High Court judge ruled that their ties weren’t close enough to warrant the kind of trust he claimed to have had for his friend. Although the court found he was merely a courier, the man still had to be given the mandatory death penalty because prosecutors didn’t issue him a certificate of having cooperated with them, it said.
“But how could he have cooperated if, as he told the police and the court, he had not even been aware that he was being used to deliver heroin?” the group said on Facebook.
The group said it “condemns, in the strongest terms, the state’s bloodthirsty streak” and reiterated calls for an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty.
Critics say Singapore’s harsh policy punishes low-level traffickers and couriers, who are typically recruited from marginalised groups with vulnerabilities.
