WASHINGTON, US
Singapore has on Friday hanged a 45-year-old citizen who was caught with 31 grams of heroin, the first time the city-state has executed a woman in nearly 20 years.
Saridewi Binte Djamani was
hanged on Friday after being convicted of trafficking “not less than 30.72
grams” of the drug in 2018, the Central Narcotics Bureau said in a statement.
The bureau said Djamani had
been accorded “full due process under the law” and had access to legal counsel
throughout the process.
Djamani’s execution proceeded
despite protests from human rights groups, including Amnesty International,
which argues Singapore’s use of capital punishment for drug offences violates
international law and does little to deter drug use.
“We call on the international
community, particularly States who have abolished the death penalty in law or
practice, to help halt this inhumane, ineffective and discriminatory practice
in Singapore,” Amnesty International said in a statement earlier this week.
Transformative Justice
Collective, a local advocacy group, had condemned authorities for their
“bloodthirsty streak” ahead of the execution.
In April, a group of United
Nations experts described the rate of executions in Singapore for drug offences
as “highly alarming” and called for an immediate moratorium after claims a
46-year-old ethnic Tamil citizen was hanged despite being denied adequate
interpretation during police interrogations.
Singapore’s government, which
tightly controls public protest and the media, has
defended its use of the death penalty as a deterrent against drug
trafficking and cited surveys showing most citizens support the law.
Singapore has hanged 15
people, including foreigners, for drug-related offences since March 2022, when
it resumed executions after a hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Wednesday, Mohd Aziz bin
Hussain, 57, was hanged for trafficking about 50 grams of heroin.
Despite a reputation as a
well-run business hub, Singapore’s ultra-strict laws place it in the company of
a handful of authoritarian states, including China and North Korea, that impose
the death penalty for drug offences.
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