The statement below was released by the We Believe in Second Chances group yesterday:
We strongly urge the Singapore government to halt the execution of Prabu N Pathmanathan, a Malaysian convicted of drug trafficking in Singapore, scheduled to be carried out on Friday 26 October at dawn.
Prabu was convicted for committing several acts preparatory to and for the purposes of trafficking in 227.82 grams of diamorphine.
Singapore’s position on the war on drugs, which includes the passing of the mandatory death sentence on convicted drug traffickers, requires critical and urgent reassessment. As identified by the demographics of death row inmates and the families we know of, there appears to exist a pattern of poverty and marginalisation amongst them. Years of research by experienced and respected criminologists around the world have also not yielded any conclusive evidence that the death penalty is more effective than any other punishment in deterring crime.
Finally, we would like to reiterate that the death penalty is a cruel and inhumane form of punishment. Not only is it irreversible once an execution takes place, it also creates another set of victims – the loved ones of the ones who are executed.
Signed,
Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign (SADPC)
We Believe in Second Chances