UK billionaire Richard Branson, who last year joined the worldwide call for a stay of execution for convicted Malaysian drug trafficker Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam, asked “What’s the matter with Singapore?” on Oct 10 (Monday), the World Day Against the Death Penalty.
Nagaenthran had been sentenced to death for importing 42.72g of heroin into Singapore in 2009 and was executed on April 27 of this year. He was said to have had an IQ of 69 and to suffer from intellectual disabilities, which caused activists both in Singapore and around the globe to call for clemency in his case.
Oct 10 was first set in 2003 by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty to advocate for the abolition of capital punishment.
In a post on his website, Branson called Singapore “a fascinating and dynamic city-state” noting that it’s a worldwide hub of finance and trade.
“During my occasional visits, I was always drawn to Singapore’s smart blend of tradition and modernity and its character as a microcosm of everything that Southeast Asia has to offer,” he wrote.
However, Branson said that there is one issue where “Singapore still finds itself on the wrong side of history is its continued, almost stubborn use of the death penalty, particularly for drug offences.”
He noted that there have been eleven executions this year, adding that “circumstances surrounding many cases have been dark stains on the country’s reputation in the world.”
The billionaire entrepreneur also touched on Nagaenthran’s execution, writing that he “should have never come anywhere near the death chamber at Changi Prison” because of “Singapore’s own international commitments to protect those with disabilities.”
“But even the interventions of UN experts and several EU governments couldn’t save his life,” he added.
Branson also questioned the claim of Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam that the death penalty is a strong deterrent to would-be drug traffickers, citing the example of Portugal, which abolished the death penalty in 1976 and decriminalised personal possession of all drugs in 2001.
“Following Singapore’s logic, Portugal would surely have seen increases in drug deaths and drug use. However, the positive impacts of decriminalisation were immediate, including a dramatic drop in drug-related deaths. And Portugal’s drug use has remained consistently below the EU average ever since.”
He added that the “so-called War on Drugs, as fought in Singapore and elsewhere, has been a costly failure.”
Branson also noted with concern that the eleven men who have been judicially executed this year were Malaysian nationals or of Malay origin, suggesting a possible racial bias, as well as a social one.
“All of those executed in recent memory were on the low end of the drug supply chain, small-scale drug traffickers who were victims of the drug trade themselves, threatened, coerced, and bullied by large-scale dealers who prey on their economic vulnerabilities,” he added, as opposed to drug lords who are rarely made to face the law.
He wrote that the death penalty still hasn’t stopped the flow of drugs into the country and that capital defence lawyers and human rights defenders face “continued harassment,” which has caused a decrease in the number of lawyers willing to represent death-row cases.
At least four men scheduled for capital punishment have been unrepresented in court and “in Nagen’s case, his own mother had to appear in person to plea for her son’s life – a day before he was killed,” he added.
“All of these developments tell me that Singapore’s system of capital punishment is fundamentally broken, inherently unfair, and completely disproportionate to the challenge at hand.
If drug use and misuse are really of concern, far better interventions are available, beginning with a drug policy shift that prioritises public health over criminal justice, harm reduction over criminalisation. It’s time for Singapore’s death penalty to go,” Branson wrote. /TISG