Singapore showing utter disregard for life, says Amnesty in global call to condemn 'wave of hangings'

Global rights organisation Amnesty International has urged the international community to step up the pressure against Singapore over what it calls a "relentless wave of hangings", in the wake of the city-state's execution of Nazeri Lajim just hours after he appeared without a lawyer in a final bid to stay alive.

"We call on governments, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and the International Narcotics Control Board to increase pressure on Singapore so that international safeguards on the death penalty are respected and drug control policies are rooted in the promotion and protection of human rights. 

"Singapore’s highly punitive approach does neither," said Amnesty's expert on the death penalty, Chiara Sangorgio.

She said Singapore's death penalty which is applied as a mandatory punishment for drug-related offences goes against international human rights laws and standards.

"Everyone executed in Singapore in 2022 was sentenced to the mandatory death penalty for drug-related offences. 

"Rather than having a unique deterrent effect on crime, these executions only show the utter disregard the Singaporean authorities have for human rights and the right to life," Sangorgio added.

Nazeri, a 64-year old Singaporean who had been addicted to drugs since the age of 14, was hanged early this morning at Changi Prison, the fifth execution carried out by the state this year despite increasing scrutiny over its continued use of the death penalty. 

It came a day after a frail Nazeri made a desperate request of the judges of Singapore's appeals court to give him more time to see his family members before his execution.

Nazeri had to appear for himself amid a climate of fear within Singapore's legal fraternity of representing death row inmates, with several vocal lawyers already penalised or losing their licence to practise. 

The PAP-led Singapore government, which has ruled the republic since its exit from Malaysia, has rejected criticism of its death penalty, saying it has been effective in controlling the drug menace.

But an increasing number of Singaporeans appear to be against this view, with protests even held to call for the abolition of the death penalty. 

Critics have also pointed out that almost all of those executed under Singapore's drug laws have been mules from poor families, a view shared by British aviation magnate Richard Branson who had pleaded for the life of a Malaysian man executed despite a diagnosis of intellectual disability. 

Amnesty said the executions had never deterred crime, adding that they "only show the utter disregard the Singaporean authorities have for human rights and the right to life".

"Going against a worldwide trend towards abolishing the death penalty, Singapore is just one of four countries known to have executed people for drug-related offences in recent years," it added.