Singapore Announces Plans to Execute More Death-Sentenced Prisoners Convicted of Non-Violent Drug Offenses

Human rights advo­cates are crit­i­ciz­ing the Singapore government’s plan to exe­cute more death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers con­vict­ed of non-vio­lent drug offens­es. Singapore has so far hanged 16 peo­ple since resum­ing state exe­cu­tions in March last year, and all of those exe­cut­ed were low- to mid-lev­el drug offend­ers con­vict­ed of traf­fick­ing amounts of drugs that would cur­rent­ly result in rel­a­tive­ly small pun­ish­ments in the UK and US. There is wide­spread pub­lic sup­port for use of the death penal­ty as an effec­tive pol­i­cy for reduc­ing drug traf­fick­ing in Singapore. In the U.S., one pres­i­den­tial can­di­date sup­ports a sim­i­lar pro­pos­al to use the death penal­ty on drug traf­fick­ers. International human rights law pro­hibits use of the death penal­ty for crimes that are not inten­tion­al and ​“the most seri­ous” crimes that cause lethal consequences.

Laws in Singapore per­mit the death penal­ty for peo­ple con­vict­ed of traf­fick­ing more than 15 grams of hero­in, 30 grams of cocaine, 250 grams of meth, or 500 grams of cannabis. As of August 9, 2023, there are 50 peo­ple cur­rent­ly on death row in Singapore, only three of whom were con­vict­ed of mur­der. The remain­ing pris­on­ers were con­vict­ed of non-vio­lent drug offens­es. Since March 2023, most pris­on­ers exe­cut­ed in Singapore were from Indian and Malay minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties. The Malay com­mu­ni­ty is com­prised of indige­nous peo­ple, most of whom are Muslim, who have his­tor­i­cal­ly endured racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and islam­o­pho­bia in Singapore. Kirsten Han, a jour­nal­ist and mem­ber of the Transformative Justice Collective, stat­ed, ​“Most of the death row pris­on­ers whose cas­es I’ve encoun­tered are on the low­er rungs of drug syn­di­cates. Most are eth­nic minori­ties from work­ing class back­grounds. Some are, or were, them­selves long-time drug users, and did not receive ade­quate sup­port to recover.” 

In 2022, Singapore was one of six juris­dic­tions that exe­cut­ed peo­ple for non-vio­lent drug offens­es, includ­ing Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, North Korea and Vietnam. Despite the Singapore’s Central Narcotics Bureau’s aim to exclu­sive­ly tar­get drug king­pins, Singapore Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam admit­ted that the drug king­pins were not the peo­ple who were tar­get­ed because they were oper­at­ing out­side of Singapore. Luo Ling Ling, a Singapore attor­ney who has rep­re­sent­ed death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers for 10 years, includ­ing some of those recent­ly exe­cut­ed, stat­ed, ​“In our coun­try there are so many pre­sump­tions in drug law. The accused per­son is pre­sumed to pos­sess drugs for traf­fick­ing. That’s not fair because the pros­e­cu­tor does not have to prove that the per­son had any inten­tion of traf­fick­ing. The pros­e­cu­tion has a very easy job, it gives them an unfair advan­tage and it makes it so easy to convict people.” 

The United Nation’s Office on Drug and Crime issued a state­ment in 2019 oppos­ing the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty for peo­ple con­vict­ed of non-vio­lent drug offens­es. Ajeng Larasati, Human Rights Lead at Harm Reduction International, an NGO which tracks the use of the death penal­ty for drug crimes, stat­ed, ​“What we are wit­ness­ing in Singapore lays bare many of the long-stand­ing issues with the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty for drugs, includ­ing the dis­pro­por­tion­ate impact on mar­gin­alised peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties who often expe­ri­ence inter­sect­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties. Year by year, we con­tin­ue to see more exam­ples of how mar­gin­alised groups are cru­el­ly impact­ed by the appli­ca­tion of the death penalty.”