Death Penalty - is it unnecessary...unwelcomed
It is known internationally that there is death penalty in Singapore for drug trafficking, at least for now, if not previously. And there has been a debate everywhere. Inevitably, some Australians will start boycotting Singapore, be it our goods & services, our people, etc. Already, I've seen some bloggers swearing at Singapore. And reports saying drug-traffickers should avoid Asian countries as they'll have to face serious consequences if caught. Does that indicate it is not a serious offence to smuggle drugs around the world? They are forgivable for an act which they literally know it meant to harm people? Perhaps they did it out of their folly moment & we should pardon them, at least for once. It might be so for individuals. But as a nation, it's govern by laws. Anyone who breaks the law has to accept the punishment, including citizens of the nation itself. Had the punishment been lightened, who will abide the law in future; & where is the equality for those been executed?
I'd like to hear your say on this. It's okay for any awful ones.
~~~~~~~
Drug gamble ends with 6am hanging
3 December 2005, The Straits Times English(c) 2005 Singapore Press Holdings Limited
Australian Nguyen Tuong Van's body will be flown home to Melbourne this evening
NGUYEN Tuong Van first made it into the news on Dec 16, 2002.
A four-paragraph item in The Straits Times headlined 'Aussie caught with drugs', reported that the Australian national had been charged with drug trafficking after being caught four days earlier while in transit at Changi Airport.
That was the obscure start to this story. Three years on, the ending was anything but.
In the pre-dawn dark yesterday, some 50 newshounds from 35 TV channels and newspapers worldwide milled around outside Changi Prison, ready to report Nguyen's death to the world.
At 6am, there was a sudden stillness in the air. That was the hour when the 25-year-old was hanged.
His crime: trafficking in 396.2g of pure heroin - enough for 26,000 doses.
His twin brother, Khoa Dang, showed up outside the prison 45 minutes earlier, with lawyer Julian McMahon and eight friends in four taxis. After the media mobbed him, the entourage was let inside to wait in a room.
His mother, Madam Nguyen Kim, spent the morning at a chapel. Mother and son bade their final farewell the day before, when rules were relaxed, allowing her to hold his hands through a grille. She also touched his face and hair, according to Mr McMahon.
Such was the controversy over the case that the question of whether they could touch each other became a matter of national attention, meriting the intervention of the Australian and Singapore leaders.
Singapore - which, like other countries with capital punishment, does not allow such contact due to the trauma it could induce - made a concession for holding hands. It did so after taking into account a personal appeal by Australian PM John Howard to PM Lee Hsien Loong.
It seems it was not good enough. Mr Howard yesterday described the decision to allow just hand-holding as 'clinical'.
In Canberra, church bells tolled at 9am. Politicians and supporters of the hanged man lit candles and placed flowers outside the Singapore High Commission. One banner read: 'Oh Singapore, how could you?'
In Melbourne, Nguyen's hometown, there was a vigil at St Ignatius Church.
Back in Singapore, just after 10am, a hearse left the prison gates with Nguyen's body. Covered in a white shroud with a picture of the Virgin Mary on it, the body was later placed in a coffin for a service at the Good Shepherd Convent's Marymount Chapel.
His body will be flown home this evening.
That will likely bring an end to the frenzy of the last few days, as the Australian media camped here reported back to a home audience which was divided between those who supported the death penalty and those who did not.
But it was not just the media's show. The past few weeks melded into a supercharged drama of emotion, ethics and politics - of one country's decision to punish an offender for a crime committed on its sovereign soil, and another's desire to protect its citizen from what it deems as vengeful laws.
Mr Howard made five personal appeals to Mr Lee for clemency. Singapore stood its ground, defending its laws, which impose a mandatory death penalty on drug traffickers, be they Singaporeans or foreigners.
Some say the tenor of bilateral ties has been altered.
University of Western Australia academic Kenneth Morgan expects 'collateral damage'. He fears there will be Australians who will choose Qantas over Singapore Airlines, and those who will cut their Optus phone lines.
But official ties are likely to be sturdier, said observers.
'Singapore and Australia need each other,' said Prof Morgan. The two countries enjoy strong economic, military and security ties.
While Mr Howard said yesterday he would not encourage boycotts, he did not rule out the Nguyen case having an effect on people-to-people relations.
Hours before the hanging, a small group of activists lit candles near the prison.
Mr Jacob George, of the Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Committee, said that while 'most Singaporeans want the death penalty', a 'small minority is starting to speak out'.
But some, like marketing executive Lee Su Wei, 26, believe capital punishment is the key reason Singapore is relatively drug-free: 'This is the maximum sentence. It's the highest deterence you can mete out.'
Mr Howard hopes it will have that effect. As he told the media, the hanging was a 'message to the young of Australia' about the danger of peddling drugs.
Nguyen paid the price - with his life.
NGUYEN Tuong Van first made it into the news on Dec 16, 2002.
A four-paragraph item in The Straits Times headlined 'Aussie caught with drugs', reported that the Australian national had been charged with drug trafficking after being caught four days earlier while in transit at Changi Airport.
That was the obscure start to this story. Three years on, the ending was anything but.
In the pre-dawn dark yesterday, some 50 newshounds from 35 TV channels and newspapers worldwide milled around outside Changi Prison, ready to report Nguyen's death to the world.
At 6am, there was a sudden stillness in the air. That was the hour when the 25-year-old was hanged.
His crime: trafficking in 396.2g of pure heroin - enough for 26,000 doses.
His twin brother, Khoa Dang, showed up outside the prison 45 minutes earlier, with lawyer Julian McMahon and eight friends in four taxis. After the media mobbed him, the entourage was let inside to wait in a room.
His mother, Madam Nguyen Kim, spent the morning at a chapel. Mother and son bade their final farewell the day before, when rules were relaxed, allowing her to hold his hands through a grille. She also touched his face and hair, according to Mr McMahon.
Such was the controversy over the case that the question of whether they could touch each other became a matter of national attention, meriting the intervention of the Australian and Singapore leaders.
Singapore - which, like other countries with capital punishment, does not allow such contact due to the trauma it could induce - made a concession for holding hands. It did so after taking into account a personal appeal by Australian PM John Howard to PM Lee Hsien Loong.
It seems it was not good enough. Mr Howard yesterday described the decision to allow just hand-holding as 'clinical'.
In Canberra, church bells tolled at 9am. Politicians and supporters of the hanged man lit candles and placed flowers outside the Singapore High Commission. One banner read: 'Oh Singapore, how could you?'
In Melbourne, Nguyen's hometown, there was a vigil at St Ignatius Church.
Back in Singapore, just after 10am, a hearse left the prison gates with Nguyen's body. Covered in a white shroud with a picture of the Virgin Mary on it, the body was later placed in a coffin for a service at the Good Shepherd Convent's Marymount Chapel.
His body will be flown home this evening.
That will likely bring an end to the frenzy of the last few days, as the Australian media camped here reported back to a home audience which was divided between those who supported the death penalty and those who did not.
But it was not just the media's show. The past few weeks melded into a supercharged drama of emotion, ethics and politics - of one country's decision to punish an offender for a crime committed on its sovereign soil, and another's desire to protect its citizen from what it deems as vengeful laws.
Mr Howard made five personal appeals to Mr Lee for clemency. Singapore stood its ground, defending its laws, which impose a mandatory death penalty on drug traffickers, be they Singaporeans or foreigners.
Some say the tenor of bilateral ties has been altered.
University of Western Australia academic Kenneth Morgan expects 'collateral damage'. He fears there will be Australians who will choose Qantas over Singapore Airlines, and those who will cut their Optus phone lines.
But official ties are likely to be sturdier, said observers.
'Singapore and Australia need each other,' said Prof Morgan. The two countries enjoy strong economic, military and security ties.
While Mr Howard said yesterday he would not encourage boycotts, he did not rule out the Nguyen case having an effect on people-to-people relations.
Hours before the hanging, a small group of activists lit candles near the prison.
Mr Jacob George, of the Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Committee, said that while 'most Singaporeans want the death penalty', a 'small minority is starting to speak out'.
But some, like marketing executive Lee Su Wei, 26, believe capital punishment is the key reason Singapore is relatively drug-free: 'This is the maximum sentence. It's the highest deterence you can mete out.'
Mr Howard hopes it will have that effect. As he told the media, the hanging was a 'message to the young of Australia' about the danger of peddling drugs.
Nguyen paid the price - with his life.
A WAKE-UP CALL TO THE YOUNG
'I hope the strongest message that comes out of this is a message to the young of Australia - don't have anything to do with drugs, don't use them, don't touch them, don't carry them, don't traffick in them. Don't imagine for a moment that you can risk carrying drugs anywhere in Asia without suffering the most severe consequences.'
-- AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD, on the execution of Nguyen Tuong Van.
DEATH PENALTY IS A COUNTRY'S RIGHT
'Both our countries have got the death penalty, Other countries may not consider it appropriate but these are laws within our own countries. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but this is the right of every individual country. If anyone breaks the law, they will have to face the consequences.'
-- MALAYSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SYED HAMID ALBAR, rejecting complaints that Singapore's execution of Nguyen was barbaric.
A THIRD-WORLD ACT WHICH HURTS US ALL
'For a first-world country to be imposing a third-world penalty by executing this young man, it diminishes the lives of all of us. The Singapore Government must understand that killing this young Australian will not kill the fight against the mandatory death penalty.'
-- MR ROB HULLS, Attorney-General of Australia's Victoria State where the Nguyens live.
posted by Man @ 12:24 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I don't agree with the law, but as it is a law, anyone who violates that law in the country shouldn't be surprised when it is enforced. Just because I may do something in my own country and get away with it doesn't mean I should feel entitled to do it in another country. It is an insult to that country's sovereignty.
Socially, exaggeration is often whimsical. But when a government dramatically inflates numbers to help justify a death sentence, the integrity of both the trial and its governing body becomes questionable. In this case, the government is Singapore, the trial was for Van Tuong Nguyen, and the bloated number is 26,000.
Press from around the world quotes Abdullah Tarmugi, the Speaker of Singapore Parliament, in writing about the potential consequences of Van's actions, "almost 400 grams of pure heroin, enough for more than 26,000 doses."
But how was 26,000 doses (or "hits") derived?
It turns out that what constitutes a hit of heroin is not an easy thing to count. There are dozens of factors to consider; contact your local Needle Exchange for a comprehensive list. However, after collecting statistics from over a dozen sources (including police reports, narcotics web sites, health information, and workers from needle exchanges), the number of hits from a gram of pure heroin averages out to little more than 14.
Van Tuong Nguyen trafficked 396.2 grams of heroin into Singapore. This is approximately 5,600 doses.
The numbers 5,600 and 26,000 are obviously incongruous, as are reports that 400 grams of heroin would "ruin 26,000 lives". In fact, 400 grams of heroin would not come close to ruining even 5,600 lives. Rather, the heroin would most likely supply people already abusing it. With a little more research, we can estimate how many lives would be adversely affected by 400 grams of heroin during one year:
As many as 67, and as few as 6.
Van Tuong Nguyen would not have sent 26,000 people to their deaths from 400 grams of heroin. Nor would the lives of 26,000 people have been ruined. Far more likely is that six people would get a year's worth of hits. And for this he was executed?
Call it dreadful, call it dense, call it incomprehensible ... but do not call it justice.
Frankly speaking, when I first saw 26,000 doses produced with just 396.2g of heroin, I was astounded. “It is actually such strong drugs,” I wondered. I wasn’t very convinced; neither did I carry out any research as I believe it was harmful to living beings after all (regardless of 1 or many beings, they are all lives). If 26,000 is not a fact, I would agree that the reports have been exaggerated and readers were led to believe this deception. Otherwise, it might be the inference of the worst scenario.
The verdict was not declared after knowing how much drugs was trafficked by Nguyen. The law has been in place for years in Singapore, i.e. one carrying more than 15g of narcotic will be hanged. Apparently, 15g is unlikely to seize a life but it is the initiation of ruining a human; it’s addictive. How much effort, determination & suffering must a drug addict endure before he can completely be freed from his addiction? Nobody will know, only himself. To keep a city free from drugs, such disciplinary action need to be established. Because, having it to start, it’s arduous to stop. And it might affect later generation. Lots & lots of implication, not only Nguyen’s family.
I assure you, 26,000 is not a fact. I've talked with Canada's National Police Force, and they confirm my findings. Actually, they suggest that 400 grams of heroin would only produce 2,000 doses, because one "point" (street slang) is 1/5th of a gram.
I agree that we should not tolerate drug traffickers. I disagree that they should be killed. There are healthier alternatives. Have them locked up and create hand-made posters telling about the evils of drugs. The posters can be placed in schools.
There are many ways of justice. Capital punishment is always wrong.
The problem I have with death penalty is that if there's something wrong with the ruling, it can't be reverse. It's not so much with what kind of crime but whether it can be proved 100% someone committed the crime. I once watched a documnetary program and there's an experiment as to how certain when the witness gives the evidence. The result shows that it's not even 50% correct.
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