A candlelight vigil will be held on Monday night (Apr 25) from 7-10pm, at the Speakers’ Corner at Hong Lim Park, for two men who are scheduled for judicial execution later this week. More information about the vigil may be found here.

The family of convicted Malaysian drug trafficker Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, 34, was told that he would be executed on Apr 27, Wednesday. And Datchinamurthy Kataiah, 36, who has been in a neighbouring cell to Nagaenthran for many years, is scheduled for judicial execution on Apr 29, Friday.

In 2015, the Malaysian national was sentenced to hang, after having been found guilty of smuggling 44.96gm of diamorphine into Singapore in 2011.

After Nagaenthran’s family received word that his execution date had been set, a candlelight vigil for him was organised by activists who have been fighting for a stay of execution, and who also staged a protest against the death penalty earlier this month, also at Hong Lim Park, which was attended by about 400 Singaporeans and permanent residents.

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“We gather on Monday for a candlelight vigil to mark our opposition to this cruelty, and to show his family and the many others on death row that we grieve, rage, and stand with them. Till Nagen is alive, we fight on.

This one week, we have to do everything in our power to demand that the state #stoptheexecution. If enough of us speak up, there is still a chance the President and Cabinet can be moved to grant Nagen clemency,” says the event page on Facebook.

“Nagaenthran. Save him. Only then there will be some relief. Sorry, he has done wrong. Everyone, please help.” This is what the mother, Panchalai Supermaniam, said in Malay, translated into English.

Activists have been fighting his execution for many months, arguing that Nagaenthran has an IQ of 69 and suffers from an intellectual disability.

On Sunday (Apr 24), the Transformative Justice Collective, a group aiming to reform Singapore’s criminal justice system, starting with the abolition of the death penalty, announced that among the speakers at the vigil are Singapore Democratic Party chairman Dr Paul Tambyah and playwright, poet and writer Alfian Sa’at.

See also  Stay of execution granted to Datchinamurthy Kataiah, who was scheduled to be hanged tomorrow Apr 29

Rappers Subhas Nair and Opus Renegade are also part of the line-up of performers.

Mr Nair has made his stand against the death penalty clear, appearing in court last year to face charges wearing a shirt with Nagaenthran’s face printed on it.

“We must abolish the death penalty. No state should have the right to take a human life. Solidarity with Naga and his family,” he wrote in an Instagram post in November 2021.

Transformative Justice Collective also said in another tweet that actors Neo Swee Lin and Lim Kay Siu will be performing a sing-along as part of the vigil.

On March 30, Singapore carried out its first execution in more than two years. Abdul Kahar bin Othman, 68, had been convicted on two charges of trafficking diamorphine in 2013 and given the death penalty two years later. /TISG

Candlelight vigil for Nagaenthran on April 25, two days before his scheduled execution