Wednesday’s execution by hanging of a man with an intellectual disability in Singapore for trafficking 42 grams of heroin underscores how harshly many countries in Southeast Asia punish drug offences, including the death penalty.
Drug crimes are punishable by death, hanging, firing squad, by lethal injection, in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, while the Philippines, Cambodia and Burma (Myanmar) have abolished it or do not apply it.
The execution of the Malaysian Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, sentenced in 2010 for entering the prosperous city-state with 42.72 grams of heroin, has taken place despite calls against the European Union, the UN and NGOs such as Amnesty International
Nagaenthran, with an IQ of 69 (considered mentally handicapped), has been executed under some of the most draconian drug laws on the planet.
In Singapore, capital punishment is applied to drug offenses such as possession of more than 15 grams of diamorphine (pure heroin), 30 grams of cocaine, 500 grams of cannabis and 250 grams of methamphetamine.
There are exceptions, such as the case of people with disabilities, but the courts dismissed this mitigating factor in the case of the Malaysian defendant.
After two years of hiatus, Singapore has executed three people convicted of drug trafficking since last March and is scheduled to apply the death penalty to another inmate also sentenced for drug trafficking on Friday.
According to local media, there are about 50 people on death row in the city-state.
Shooting in Indonesia
Indonesia punishes drug trafficking with penalties that include between 5 and 20 years in prison, life imprisonment or death by firing squad, with amounts starting at 5 grams of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine, among other substances.
According to a 2021 report by the Asia Anti-Death Penalty Network (ADPAN), there were some 350 people on death row in the Indonesian archipelago as of last year, with 60 percent They were convicted of drug trafficking.
During the pandemic, Indonesian courts have sentenced many prisoners to death through Zoom and other telematic systems, which has been criticized by some human rights organizations.
In 2015, a Brazilian prisoner accused of drug trafficking was executed in an Indonesian prison, despite repeated pleas for clemency from Brasilia.
In Thailand, 80 percent of prisoners are sentenced for drug offences, including possession of methamphetamine, while drug trafficking is punishable by up to 15 years in prison or the death penalty.
According to data from the Thai Prison Department, there are 194 people on death row in the country, of which 64 percent are related to drug trafficking.
Mexicans pardoned in Malaysia
Malaysia has a moratorium on executions in 2018, although the death penalty remains legally in force for crimes such as drug trafficking and murder.
As of September 2021, there were 1,366 people on death row in the country, of which 927 were convicted of drug trafficking, while 529 were foreigners, according to ADPAN data.
The three Mexican González Villarreal brothers, originally from the state of Sinaloa, were pardoned and extradited to Mexico in 2019 after spending 7 years on death row in Malaysia for drug trafficking.
Vietnam, which applies the death penalty to those convicted of drug trafficking, murder and crimes against national security, executed prisoners by firing squad until 2011, when it adopted lethal injection.
Some 1,200 people are sentenced to death in Vietnam, with the last execution taking place in 2018, indicated the ADPAN, which specified that there is a lot of opacity around this type of information in the communist country.
In other countries in the region, Burma and Laos are considered de facto abolitionists of capital punishment, as they have not executed anyone for decades, while Cambodia and the Philippines are the only countries that have officially abolished it.
However, the Philippine government of Rodrigo Duterte launched a war on drugs in 2016 that has left more than 9,000 dead, according to official data, although some NGOs speak of up to 27,000 deaths, some of them in alleged extrajudicial executions. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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