Activists cry murder over Singapore hanging

FMT: Activists cry murder over Singapore hanging

By Teoh El Sen

KUALA LUMPUR: Anti-death-penalty activists have asked the Singapore government to admit that it wrongfully executed a young Malaysian in 2003 and demanded that it release British writer Alan Shadrake, whose latest book sheds new light on the case.

“Singapore has murdered an innocent person in cold blood,” said N Surendran of Lawyers for Liberty in reference to the hanging of M Vignes, who was 21 when he was arrested in 2001 on suspicion of drug trafficking.

Surendran was speaking to reporters outside the Singapore High Commission, where his organisation and the Civil Rights Committee of the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall had submitted a memorandum demanding the abolition of the death penalty and a halt to all pending executions.

Vignes was hanged in Changi Prison on Sept 26, 2003. Shadrake is awaiting trial for criminal defamation and contempt of court for allegations he made in his book against the Singapore government.

He was arrested a day after the launching of the book, Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock.

“Alan's book revealed a shocking truth,” Surendran said. “We now know the key witness in Vignes's trial was himself being investigated for rape, sodomy and later convicted of corruption."

'Crucial facts'

Surendran said Singapore authorities had maliciously concealed these "crucial facts" from Vignes's lawyer, M Ravi.

"Worse still, when Ravi asked Chief Justice Yong Pung How whether an innocent man could be hanged because of procedural matters, he replied 'Yes, the answer is yes’. This is as if the CJ has himself strangled him with his own hands."

The memorandum was submitted to the High Commission’s first secretary, Walter Chia. It demanded that the Singapore government:

• acknowledge the miscarriage of justice that led to the execution of Vignes;
• clear Vignes’s name and make amends to his family;
• institute immediate reforms in the Singapore judiciary to ensure Singaporean judges appreciate and respect human life and liberty;
• take appropriate action according to the Singapore Constitution against Chief Justice Yong;
• halt all pending executions in Singapore and commute death sentences to imprisonment; and
• withdraw all pending criminal charges against Shadrake and apologise for his wrongful arrest and imprisonment.

Speaking to reporters, Vignes' father, V Mourthi, said he still felt as if his son was alive.

"I know he is innocent,” he said. “I want to know what the Singapore government is going to do about this. I hope the truth will finally come out.”

Drug trafficking: Two escape death

By K.C. VIJAYAN

Two men were spared the gallows yesterday, after the high Court found them not guilty of capital drug trafficking charges. However, a third man, involved in the same case, was sentenced to death.

Both Tamil Selvan, 41, and M. Balasubramaniam, 30, had been jointly tried with Azman Sanwan, 38, who was found guilty for the same offence of trafficking in 1,525.7g of cannabis.

When Azman was sentenced to death, his wife, who was in court with their two young children and other relatives, broke down and had to be helped.

Both Tamil and Bala were remanded to face several other lesser charges that were initially stood down. Each was offered bail of $50,000.

All three men were nabbed by Central narcotics Bureau officers in a sting operation on April 30 2007 at a carpark in front of Block 108, Yishun Ring Road.

Azman was seen tranferring a blue paper bag from the back of a black Honda Civic to the boot of a blue Mitsubishi Lancer parked alongside. He was earlier seen carrying the same paper bag from the Lancer to the back of the Honda. When the officers moved in, they found a wrapped bundle containing two blocks of vegetable matter inside the paper bag. The vegetable blocks were found to contain cannabis.

Azman, defended by lawyer Sunil Sudheesan, admitted that he had brought in drugs a few times before but said that on those previous occasions, they were not big deliveries. He claimed not to know how the drugs got into his car.

Bala and Tamil were at the back of the Honda car trying to separate the exhaust pipe from the bumper, at the time of the incident, as it was seen to be emitting fumes and was out of position. Both, defended by lawyer Ramesh Tiwary, claimed they had no knowledge there was cannabis in either car.

In the grounds for his judgement, Justice Kan Ting Chiu said Azman did not offer any "consistent explanation" for the presence of the blue paper bag found in the boot of the car and there was an "abundance of evidence" against him.

Tamil, on the other hand was not accused of having handled the bundles containing the drugs. It was also not proved that Bala actually or presumably knew the bundles contained cannabis.

There was nothing to show that all three had a common intention to traffic in the drugs, added Justice Kan in the 54-page judgment, delivered a year after the hearings.

Source: The Straits Times, July 10 2010

Singapore: Disneyland with the Death Penalty

"Disneyland with the Death Penalty" is an article about Singapore written by William Gibson, his first major piece of non-fiction, first published as the cover story for Wired magazine's September/October 1993 issue (1.04).

The article follows Gibson's observations of the architecture, phenomenology and culture of Singapore, and the clean, bland and conformist impression the city-state conveys during his stay.

Its title and central metaphor—Singapore as Disneyland with the death penalty—is a reference to the authoritarian artifice the author perceives the city-state to be. Singapore, Gibson details, is lacking any sense of creativity or authenticity, absent of any indication of its history or underground culture.

He finds the government to be pervasive, corporatist and technocratic, and the judicial system rigid and draconian. Singaporeans are characterised as consumerists of insipid taste. The article is accentuated by local news reports of criminal trials by which the author illustrates his observations, and bracketed by contrasting descriptions of the South-East Asian airports he arrives and leaves by.
Though Gibson's first major piece of non-fiction, the article had an immediate and lasting impact. The Singaporean government banned Wired upon the publication of the issue, and the phrase "Disneyland with the death penalty" became a byword for bland authoritarianism that the city-state could not easily discard.

Read more:

Wiki: Disneyland with the Death Penalty

Original Wired article

Public execution in Iran (video)

Capital punishment by hanging is still practiced in a few Commonwealth countries, Singapore and Malaysia included. The gore and cruelty of execution by hanging have been shielded away from public's eye because few people can stomach the total loss of human dignity when a person is executed.

Judicial execution and public execution is essentially the same in terms of what prisoners go through psychologically.

In the video an unhooded woman and two men are draped with the noose and executed by suspension hanging. A suspension crane is lifted up where the ropes are tied to.

The woman appeared to struggle for a minute and then went limp, while the two men put up no sign of struggle and were presumed to be unconscious within seconds due to carotid sinus reflex where cardiac arrest occurs.

Would you still support the death penalty if you had to watch an execution in public? Take the poll on the right of the site.

Iran public hanging video (graphic: discretion is adviced)

New execution in Saudi Arabia

April 25, 2010: A Saudi man was decapitated by the sword in the eastern city of Dammam, in Saudi Arabia, after being sentenced to death for murdering another Saudi man, the government announced.

Saleh al-Ghamdi was executed after being convicted in the shooting death of Idha al-Jaid following a dispute, the interior ministry said in a statement published by the official SPA news agency.

It was the ninth reported execution of the year in Saudi Arabia.

Sources: AFP, April 26, 2010