The Death Penalty in Singapore: "Singapore drug laws fail miserably as a deterrent"

17:13 efforts to save Yong Vui Kong 0 Comments

The Death Penalty in Singapore: "Singapore drug laws fail miserably as a deterrent": "efforts to save Yong Vui Kong, who received the mandatory death sentence in Singapore for drug trafficking, face an almost impossible battle. It is a case that absolutely screams out for compassion: a foolish, confused and handicapped youth ill-used by faceless drug kingpins. His appeal for clemency has already been rejected by the president of Singapore who ought to have used his office to mitigate the appallingly harsh law under which Yong was convicted despite the small amount of drugs he was found in possession of.

Singapore's Law Minister is reported to have said: 'Yong Vui Kong is young, but if we say, we let you go, what is the signal we are sending?' One might reply that it will signal there is still a shred of mercy left within the island's justice system. And can the minister really be so unforgiving that commuting the sentence to life imprisonment is equated to 'letting you go?'

Perhaps the minister is alluding to the possibility that drug kingpins will be encouraged to use young persons as couriers if Yong is not executed. But this is to imagine that drug kingpins, contrary to everything we know about them, actually care about the fate of their mules. To think that the island will be flooded with drugs if one less person is executed or the law made more discriminating is indeed a case of paranoid thinking."