Today Singapore executed a man because the drugs he was smuggling to Australia may have resulted in the deaths of many people. Nguyen was caught. The drugs seized. The drugs never even reached the streets of Sydney. I will never understand how any country can justify putting someone to death because something they might have done had they not been caught might have resulted in people dying.
Number of people killed by Nguyen’s drugs: 0.
Number of people killed by the Singaporean government: Nguyen plus countless others.
Joseph Koh, the Singaporean High Commissioner in Australia was quoted as saying:
We respect Australia’s sovereign choice not to have capital punishment. We hope Australia will likewise respect Singapore’s sovereign choice to impose the death penalty for the most serious crimes, including drug trafficking.
The sovereign choice to impose the death penalty is one thing; having a mandatory death sentence for a crime which may have resulted in the deaths of some people were it not foiled, is quite another, especially when the means of execution is a barbaric relic of the dark ages.
In this instance, Singapore asks for respect where there is none to be found.
