Australian executed in Singapore

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4487366.stm

An Australian drug smuggler has been executed at Singapore's Changi prison.

Nguyen Truong Van, 25, received a mandatory death sentence after being arrested at the country's airport in 2002 with 400g (14 ounces) of heroin.

He was hanged hours after his mother and twin brother had visited him and despite calls for clemency.

Protest vigils were held in Singapore and Australia, while Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock described the sentence as "barbaric".

Mr Ruddock said the case had mitigating circumstances, because Nguyen maintained he had smuggled the drugs to earn enough money to pay off legal bills of A$30,000 (£13,000) incurred by his twin brother, a former heroin addict.

It's a most unfortunate, barbaric act that is occurring
Philip Ruddock Australian Attorney-General

Nguyen's case has prompted intense media coverage in Australia, though a poll released on Thursday suggested people were divided over whether the death penalty was justified.

Before the sentence was carried out, one of Nguyen's lawyers, Julian McMahon, described him as "completely rehabilitated, completely reformed, completely focused on doing what is good".

Another of his lawyers, Lex Lasry, said that his client was ready to die.

"We've just had a beautiful last visit. It was a great visit and quite uplifting," he said.

Strict laws

Nguyen's mother appeared at the jail for her last visit looking distressed.
[Nguyen's mother had fought for clemency for her son]

During her son's captivity, she had been unable to have any physical contact with him, only being allowed to see and speak to him through a glass partition.

But the Singapore government gave the two permission to hold hands during their final meeting, following a personal appeal by Australia's Prime Minister John Howard. Nguyen was born in Vietnam but lived in Melbourne.

Singapore has some of the strictest drug trafficking laws in the world, and anyone found with 15g of heroin faces a mandatory death penalty.

According to Amnesty International, about 420 people have been hanged in Singapore since 1991, mostly for drugs offences.

Published: 2005/12/01 23:25:00 GMT

For Van Tuong Nguyen.

Hundreds light a candle for Nguyen

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The Singapore Government has allowed convicted drug smuggler Van Nguyen to hold hands with his mother before his execution tomorrow morning but there will be no final embrace.

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[Protests: Ealier displays of support for Nguyen have included vigils and installations. (ABC TV) ]

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The mood in Canberra has been Sombre leading up to the execution of Van Nguyen, with the Attorney-General condemning the execution as barbaric.

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Singapore has made an exception to its rigid rules to allow convicted heroin smuggler Van Nguyen to hold hands with his mother in their final hours together before his hanging.

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The hanging of Melbourne man Van Nguyen could draw greater attention to another twelve Australians who may face judicial execution in Bali, Vietnam and Kuwait over drugs and terrorism charges.

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From ABC

Hundreds of people are attending vigils around Australia for condemned drug courier Van Nguyen.

Nguyen is to be hanged in Singapore tomorrow morning.

In Victoria, around 300 people lit candles at Federation Square before walking in silence to the Queen Victoria Gardens.

Speeches and prayers were then followed by the lighting of more candles to float in the garden's pond.

Craigieburn Catholic priest Peter Hansen says it has been important for many people to show their sympathy.

"The pain tomorrow will only just be a beginning," Father Hansen said.

Participants say they cannot believe the penalty will be carried out.

"As the moment approaches it just seems more and more horrific," one vigil participant said.

Another said: "I just can't believe it's going to happen in this day and age."

Hundreds of people gathered at Martin Place in Sydney have been addressed by Tim Goodwin from Amnesty International.

Mr Goodwin says the death penalty is unacceptable

"Tonight we stand together in solidarity with Kim Nguyen, [Van's] brother and his friends and with the families of the other victims of this horrendous penalty around the world," he said.

In Queensland, protesters have gathered in Brisbane's CBD.

The candlelight vigil in the Queen Street Mall has attracted more than 100 people.

They have heard speakers condemn the Singapore Government for allowing the execution to go ahead.

David Copeland from Amnesty International says there has been strong public support for its campaign to save the Australian's life.

Mr Copeland says there is still hope.

"We're making a last appeal to the Singaporean Government to grant to Van Nguyen, this young Australian who faces execution tomorrow morning - it is not too late, while there is life there is hope," he said.

Van Tuong Nguyen

From Amnesty International

Van Tuong Nguyen

Attend vigils around Australia to show support for Van Tuong Nguyen

last updated: 01 Dec 2005 4:50pm

Australians can show their support for Van and express their opposition to the death penalty by attending Candles of Hope vigils in capital cities and towns around Australia. more about Attend vigils around Australia to show support for Van Tuong Nguyen

Wear a yellow ribbon

Van's friends have asked Australians to wear a yellow ribbon over the next few days to show their support.

Buy some ribbon 1cm wide and cut into 12 cm long pieces
Fold the ribbon in half
Halfway down the folded ribbon length secure with a mini safety pin
Pin the yellow ribbon on you to show your support for Van Tuong Nguyen and opposition to the death penalty.

A song for reason

Highly regarded Australian artist Peter Fenton has written and recorded a song about Van Tuong Nguyen. You can listen and download the song mule here. (To download the song right click on the link and select save or 'ctrl' click for Mac users. file size: 2.7 mb)

Peter Fenton will be playing the song in Sydney, 6.30pm, at the Martin Place vigil for Van.

Get involved: anti-Death Penalty campaign and join the network

A slight chink Singapore's armour

By Connie Levett, Singapore
December 2, 2005

Today's execution of Nguyen Tuong Van has forced the mandatory death penalty onto the agenda in Singapore, with the local media unable to ignore the political lobbying, threatened trade boycotts and heated public debate in Australia.

In a rare break with the government line, the broadsheet Straits Times newspaper ran an article reassessing the mandatory death penalty, despite continuing government statements that it is essential to protect citizens from the scourge of drugs and deter drug syndicates basing themselves in Singapore.

"Perhaps in the months ahead, when emotions have died down, the mandatory death penalty - meaning its case-by-case, crime-by-crime application - should be reassessed by lawyers, officials and citizens alike," political reporter Ken Kwek wrote in an analysis piece. "If that happens, we should all focus on the specific - how the mandatory death penalty might be removed for certain crimes - rather than fall for the broadbrush rhetoric calling for its complete and unconditional abolition," the article said.

A long-time resident of Singapore, who asked not to be named, said "it shows in Singapore, within the established media, there are some misgivings about this medieval form of punishment. I wouldn't see it as a signal from the government, more a signal from the intelligentsia."

Yesterday's Straits Times devoted two pages to the story, picking up the letter by Singapore's High Commissioner to Australia, Joseph Koh, justifying the rejection of clemency.

The increased coverage reflects Singapore's awareness that the region is closely watching its actions.

- with STEVE BUTCHER

Lawyers refused permission to witness hanging

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Nguyen execution all but certain

Execution of Melbourne man Van Nguyen all but certain
MPEG2


Thursday, 1 December 2005. 11:34 (AWST)

Permission denied: Mr Lasry had asked to witness the execution.Reuters
Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer says a plea from the lawyers of convicted drug trafficker Van Nguyen to witness their client's execution has been rejected.

Mr Downer says he spoke to Singapore's High Commissioner to Australia this morning about the Nguyen case.

The 25-year-old is to be hanged in Singapore's Changi Prison tomorrow at 9:00am AEDT.

Mr Downer says an official from the Australian embassy in Singapore will have to formally identify the body after the hanging.

Nguyen's body will be returned to Australia.

Mr Downer says he has asked Singapore's High Commissioner, Joseph Koh, to allow Nguyen's mother to hug him before his death.

"I spoke to the Singapore High Commissioner in Canberra this morning and I said to him, 'Look I just want to reiterate that some physical contact between Van Nguyen and his mum means a lot to us' and I hope that the Singapore Government will accede to that."


Lawyer Julian McMahon has emerged from an emotional visit to Changi prison.

Mr McMahon says his client is completely rehabilitated and the execution is a terrible waste.

"He's a beautiful young man," he said.

"He is cheerful because he's composed.

"He only wishes to think good thoughts, say good thoughts, do what is right."

Nguyen's brother, Khoa, is also visiting.


Meanwhile, bipartisan condemnation of Nguyen's impending execution continues in Canberra.

Labor's Tanya Plibersek has also expressed sadness, saying she thinks she knows why Singapore may not allow Nguyen's mother a final hug.

"How could you ever let go if you were a mother?" she said.

"How could you ever let go?"

The Opposition's foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd, says some physical contact should be allowed.

"For God's sake, let's just make sure that happens," Mr Rudd said.

"Could I just issue one final plea though to the Government of Singapore, to their High Commissioner?

"That is, to back Mr Downer to the hilt in this very simply basic human request that Van's mum be given the opportunity to have to give her son a hug."

Nationals MP Paul Neville has also called on Singapore to show some compassion.

"I think it's archaic, barbaric and frightening that this goes on in the world," he said.

The Labor leader, Kim Beazley, will attend a church service at the time of the execution tomorrow morning.

"I'm very sad for him, I'm very sad for his family, very sad for all of us," he said.

"I'm sad for the Singaporean Government, that they can't see their way clear to change their minds, this is not a good thing for Singapore, not a good thing for their reputation."

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Only hours remain before drug trafficker

Van Nguyen is executedThere are almost certainly only hours remaining in the life of the Australian convicted drug trafficker, Van Nguyen. Despite repeated pleas for clemency, Singapore says he will hang tomorrow morning.

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Lawyers of Nguyen arrive for final visit

Today is the final day for the family and friends of the condemned Australian man Van Nguyen to visit him before his execution tomorrow morning. His lawyers Lex Lasry and Gillian McMahon have arrived at Changi prison and his family are also expected to arrive.

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Australia: Singapore execution "barbaric"

National Business Review.

The Australian government has run out of diplomacy on Singapore's plan to execute convicted Australian drug smuggler Tuong Van Nguyen, 25.

The execution is only hours away and international calls for clemency have fallen on deaf ears.

By Singapore law, the death sentence was mandatory and Australia has been careful to say it must respect the laws of other countries.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock stepped outside the careful language of diplomacy today, calling the execution "barbaric."

"It was a mandatory death sentence. We feel most remorseful this is going to happen," Mr Ruddock told Australian television.

"It's a most unfortunate, barbaric act that is occurring."

Reuters reports that Singapore and Canberra have a special relationship and Prime Minister John Howard has rejected calls for trade and military boycotts over the execution but has tried to use personal leverage in an attempt to gain clemency.

Some 420 people have been hanged in Singapore since 1991, mostly for drug trafficking, Reuters said, citing an Amnesty International report. That gives the country of 4.4 million people the highest execution rate in the world relative to population.

The Australian population is about evenly divided on whether the execution should go forward, according to polls.

The death penalty is not an option in Australia.

1-Dec-2005

Chee responds to Joseph Koh's article in The Age

Chee responds to Joseph Koh's article in The Age
30 Nov 05

Singapore’s High Commissioner to Australia, Joseph Koh, insists that investments in the Myanmar Fund was “completely open and above board.”(Why Nuguyen must die, Nov 30, 2005)

Mr Koh fails to mention that the Singapore Government invests in projects all over the world using public funds but refuses to give an account of where these investments go and how they perform. His yardstick for “completely open” is made of plasticine.

Instead of repeatedly insisting that the Myanmar Fund project was “above board”, will Mr Koh categorically say that the investments in the Myanmar Fund were not invested with Asia World, a company owned by Burmese druglord Mr Lo Hsing Han’s?

In addition will he unequivocally say that current investments in Burma are not linked in any way with Mr Lo Hsing Han and other druglords in Burma?

It is inexplicable why Mr Koh does not refute former US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Gelbard’s claim that "Since 1988...over half of [the investments from] Singapore have been tied to the family of narco-trafficker Lo Hsing Han.'' Singapore’s total investments in Burma is estimated to be about US$1.5 billion.

Mr Koh declines to tell your readers that after the documentary was aired, the Singapore Goivernment quietly wound up the Myanmar Fund in 1997. If the Fund was “above board” why was it wound up? The GIC was a core shareholder in the Myanmar Fund with a representative in the Fund’s investment committee and not a passive investor, as claimed by the Singapore Government.

Will the High Commissioner also say whether Mr Lo Hsing Han has been banned from entering Singapore, and whether Mr Lo’s son, Steven Law, banned from the US for suspected drug activities, continues to operate in Singapore.

Mr Koh has also not revealed the fact that I am not a member of parliament and could not move a motion for a commission of inquiry. In addition, the Singapore Government need not open a commission of inquiry to the public and that the international media is often barred from covering the proceedings. The Government barred the public from a parliamentary select committee hearing that I was involved in, one that my colleagues and I were fined a total of S$51,000 for challenging the Government on health care costs in the country.

If the Singapore Government will telecast a commission of inquiry “live” and allow the foreign media to attend it, I would be more than happy to participate in it.

Even then, why does there need to be a commission of inquiry to answer the questions that I have repeatedly raised about my Government’s investments in Burma?

Mr Koh should also inform the people of Australia that the questions that I have mentioned in this letter vis-à-vis our dealings in Burma continue to be censored by the media in Singapore. Your readers should ask why.

RSF's Open Letter to PM

Reputable, impartial and credible RSF sent a letter to our PM. A press that is not free to report what it should objectively and fairly, is not an honest press and a sign of dishonest times? No legacy is so rich as honesty.

Reporters Without Borders /Reporters sans frontières Press release.

29 November 2005

SINGAPORE
Open letter to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong


Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong
c/o The Embassy of Singapore
12 square de l’Avenue-Foch
75116 Paris
Paris, 29 November 2005

Dear Prime Minister,

Reporters Without Borders would like to take advantage of your visit to France to convey to you a number of concrete recommendations aimed at achieving a lasting improvement in the situation of press freedom in Singapore.

When foreign journalists recently asked Goh Chok Tong, your predecessor as prime minister and now senior minister in your cabinet, about Singapore’s position (140th out of 167 countries) in our 2005 World Press Freedom Index, he said it was a “subjective measure computed through the prism of Western liberals” and went on to defend Singapore’s control of the news media by arguing that “an unthinking press is not good for all countries.”

More than a year has passed since your administration’s installation and your statements in support of an “open” society, but we have not observed any significant improvement in the situation of press freedom.

We therefore believe that your government should take the follow measures as a matter of urgency:

1. Cease to systematically bring defamation actions against Singaporean and foreign news media that try to report Singaporean news freely (and ask your associates to also stop bringing such actions). It is unacceptable in a would-be democratic country that the head of government, his ministers and his associates assail journalists with lawsuits and thereby force them to adopt to self-censorship.

2. Amend Singapore’s criminal law in order to abolish prison sentences for press offences.

3. Amend the press law, especially those aspects concerning the allocation of licences to publish a newspaper, which prevents the emergence of independent news media.

4. Repeal the law on newspapers and publications and the law on films.

5. Amend the national security law by abolishing administrative detention which has in the past resulted in the imprisonment of journalists and human rights activists.

6. Amend the powers of the Media Development Authority so that it is no longer able to censor and can just make recommendations about television programmes and films.

7. Allow members of the political opposition and civil society representatives free access to the public news media.

8. Guarantee the editorial independence of all the news media owned by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) and Media Corporation of Singapore (Mediacorp).

9. Repeal the law that requires religious and political website moderators to have a licence, as well as certain articles on the malicious use of computer technology which permits the surveillance and arrest of Internet users.

10. Rescind the requirement of prior permission to hold external news conferences.

The Reporters Without Borders index which you and your closest associates have publicly questioned measures the state of press freedom throughout the world. It reflects the level of freedom enjoyed by journalists and news media in each country and the efforts undertaken by governments to respect and ensure respect for this freedom.

We stand by our position that this world press freedom ranking, in which Singapore’s position has remained virtually unchanged, is based on hard facts and not on subjective interpretation.

In recent months, for example, we have seen police harassment of documentary filmmaker Martyn See and threats of lawsuits against the business news website FinanceAsia.com.

We regret that you, members of your government and your father, the former prime minister, continue to argue that control of the media and the maintenance of draconian legislation is necessary to ensure Singapore’s stability. We would like point out that countries such as Denmark and Finland that most respect press freedom are peaceful democracies. Free expression is not a source of political unrest, quite the contrary.

Mr. Prime Minister, there are simple measures that can be taken to encourage both economic development and free expression at the same time. Do not miss this chance to turn Singapore into a prosperous and free country.

We also seize this opportunity to again draw your attention to the situation of Ching Cheong, the Hong Kong-based correspondent of the Singaporean daily The Straits Times, who has been in prison in China for more than six months. We urge you to redouble your efforts to obtain his release as soon as possible.

We would be very honoured to be able to meet you in order to give you a personal presentation of our comments and proposals for ensuring press freedom in Singapore.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Ménard
Secretary-General

The Case Against The Death Penalty

An extract from The Case Against The Death Penalty by Hugo Adam Bedau, taken from Capital Punishment Project, American Civil Liberties Union.

o Capital punishment is cruel and unusual. It is a relic of the earliest days of penology, when slavery, branding, and other corporal punishments were commonplace. Like those other barbaric practices, executions have no place in a civilized society.

o Opposition to the death penalty does not arise from misplaced sympathy for convicted murderers. On the contrary, murder demonstrates a lack of respect for human life. For this very reason, murder is abhorrent, and any policy of state-authorized killings is immoral.

o Capital punishment denies due process of law. Its imposition is arbitrary and irrevocable. It forever deprives an individual of benefits of new evidence or new law that might warrant the reversal of a conviction or the setting aside of a death sentence.

o The death penalty violates the constitutional guarantee of the equal protection of the laws. It is applied randomly at best and discriminatorily at worst. It is imposed disproportionately upon those whose victims are white, on offenders who are people of color, and on those who are themselves poor and uneducated.

o The defects in death-penalty laws, conceded by the Supreme Court in the early 1970s, have not been appreciably altered by the shift from unfettered discretion to "guided discretion." These changes in death sentencing have proved to be largely cosmetic. They merely mask the impermissible arbitrariness of a process that results in an execution.

o Executions give society the unmistakable message that human life no longer deserves respect when it is useful to take it and that homicide is legitimate when deemed justified by pragmatic concerns.

o Reliance on the death penalty obscures the true causes of crime and distracts attention from the social measures that effectively contribute to its control. Politicians who preach the desirability of executions as a weapon of crime control deceive the public and mask their own failure to support anti-crime measures that will really work.

o Capital punishment wastes resources. It squanders the time and energy of courts, prosecuting attorneys, defense counsel, juries, and courtroom and correctional personnel. It unduly burdens the system of criminal justice, and it is therefore counterproductive as an instrument for society's control of violent crime. It epitomizes the tragic inefficacy and brutality of the resort to violence rather than reason for the solution of difficult social problems.

o A decent and humane society does not deliberately kill human beings. An execution is a dramatic, public spectacle of official, violent homicide that teaches the permissibility of killing people to solve social problems-- the worst possible example to set for society. In this century, governments have too often attempted to justify their lethal fury by the benefits such killing would bring to the rest of society. The bloodshed is real and deeply destructive of the common decency of the community; the benefits are illusory.

Two conclusions buttress our entire case: Capital punishment does not deter crime, and the death penalty is uncivilized in theory and unfair and inequitable in practice.