Human rights organisations have denounced Singapore‘s Friday execution of a woman for trying to trade an ounce of heroin, calling it a “grim milestone” for the city-state and its infamously harsh anti-drug laws. It had been almost two decades since a woman had been put to death.
In a statement issued a few hours after Singaporean Saridewi Djamani, 45, was hanged on Friday in Changi Prison, the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) made the announcement.
She received the obligatory death sentence in 2018 after being found guilty of transporting 31 grammes of heroin.
The CNB stated that she received “full due process under the law and was represented by legal counsel throughout the process,” noting that Singapore’s rules allow for the death penalty to be applied to trafficking offences involving amounts of heroin greater than 15 grammes.
Since the 36-year-old hairstylist Yen May Woen was hanged in 2004 for drug trafficking, Saridewi is the only woman to have been executed by hanging in Singapore.
Singapore continues to have some of the strictest drug regulations in the world, and its government is adamant that the death penalty is effective at discouraging drug traffickers and preserving public safety.
The mandatory death penalty is imposed on anyone found guilty of trafficking, importing, or exporting a particular amount of illegal substances including methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, or cannabis products.
Since beginning executions for drug convictions last year, Singapore has now hanged 15 individuals, including foreigners and a man with intellectual disabilities. Activists claim this is an accelerated pace after the country took a two-year break due to the pandemic.
According to the CNB, “capital punishment is only used for the most serious crimes, such as the trafficking of significant amounts of drugs that cause very serious harm, not only to individual drug users but also to their families and the larger society.”
Rights organisations expressed additional outrage following Saridewi’s execution.
The creator of the nonprofit organisation Responsible Business Initiative for Justice, Celia Ouellette, claimed that by insisting on taking extreme and irreversible action as opposed to believing in human redemption and the ability for rehabilitation.
Singapore is putting its financial future at stake in addition to its reputation abroad. It is now time to permanently abolish the death penalty.
The execution of Saridewi was referred to as a “grim milestone” by the secretary general of the French-based NGO International Federation for Human Rights, Adilur Rahman Khan, who also reinforced calls for an end to executions in Singapore.
Chiara Sangiorgio, an expert on the death penalty for Amnesty International, stated that the most recent execution “defied international safeguards on the use of the death penalty.”
“There is no proof that the death penalty deters crime in a special way or that it has any bearing on drug usage and accessibility. Singapore’s authorities are adopting neither drug policy reform nor the abolition of the death penalty, she claimed in a statement.
According to information provided to CNN by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2022, there were roughly 50 persons on death row, the bulk of them were men. There are unknown numbers of female death row inmates.
Joshua Tong, a criminal defence attorney, stated that although drug traffickers are typically men, he has met “his fair share” of female offenders.
Tong stated that there was generally “no distinction between men and women for criminal punishments” when it came to drug offences.
He continued, “The only distinction made would be on whether caning is to be imposed,” noting that Singaporean law only allows men to be caned.
The killing of Saridewi was the second execution this week in Singapore.
Mohd Aziz bin Hussain, 57, was executed on Wednesday for distributing about 50 grammes (1.7 ounces) of heroin.
A growing number of prisoners are being executed, but according to rights groups, Singapore’s drug enforcement is incredibly opaque because a complete list of prisoners on death row is not made public.
Tangaraju Suppiah, a Singaporean, was executed in May after being found guilty of attempting to traffic 2.2 pounds of cannabis. This execution drew particularly vociferous international criticism, in part because an increasing number of countries have either legalised or decriminalised the drug.
Following psychologists’ assessments that Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, 34, was mentally retarded, his hanging last year provoked widespread outrage.
In this case, rights activists argued that Singapore’s zero-tolerance drug policies should be reexamined because the obligatory death penalty for drug trafficking is a harsh punishment.
According to activists, the region’s illicit drug trade has not been significantly reduced by the death penalty.
According to a report released in June by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the illegal drug traffic in Asia grew to “extreme levels.” According to the research, methamphetamine prices had dropped to new lows and criminal organisations were building new trafficking routes to avoid law enforcement crackdowns.
According to the report, pre-Covid meth seizures in East and Southeast Asia resumed last year after reaching record highs during the epidemic as traffickers resorted to larger and riskier bulk shipments.