SINGAPORE (AFP) – According to rights groups, Singapore is poised to carry out the executions of two drug convicts this week, a significant event as it includes the first woman to face the gallows in almost two decades. The Transformative Justice Collective (TJC), a local rights organisation, has called for an immediate halt to these executions.
The first individual scheduled for execution is a 56-year-old man who was found guilty of trafficking 50 grammes (approximately 1.76 ounces) of heroin. His hanging is planned to take place on Wednesday at Changi Prison, the renowned correctional facility in the Southeast Asian city-state.
The second convict, a 45-year-old woman identified by TJC as Saridewi Djamani, is also set to be executed on Friday. In 2018, she received a death sentence for trafficking approximately 30 grammes of heroin.
With these impending executions drawing attention from human rights groups, there are calls for clemency and a reconsideration of these sentences.
If carried out, she would be the first woman to be executed in Singapore since 2004 when 36-year-old hairdresser Yen May Woen was hanged for drug trafficking, said TJC activist Kokila Annamalai.
TJC said the two prisoners are Singaporeans and their families have received notices setting the dates of their executions.
Prison officials have not answered emailed questions from AFP seeking confirmation.
Singapore imposes the death penalty for certain crimes, including murder and some forms of kidnapping.
It also has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws: trafficking more than 500 grammes of cannabis and 15 grammes of heroin can result in the death penalty.
At least 13 people have been hanged so far since the government resumed executions following a two-year hiatus in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rights watchdog Amnesty International on Tuesday urged Singapore to halt the impending executions.
“It is unconscionable that authorities in Singapore continue to cruelly pursue more executions in the name of drug control,” Amnesty’s death penalty expert Chiara Sangiorgio said in a statement.
“There is no evidence that the death penalty has a unique deterrent effect or that it has any impact on the use and availability of drugs.
“As countries around the world do away with the death penalty and embrace drug policy reform, Singapore’s authorities are doing neither,” Sangiorgio added.
Singapore insists that the death penalty is an effective crime deterrent.
