What an insane society to execute a man for a mere 15 gms of heroin!! (the post above mentioning 400 gms is totally misleading). Has anyone seen anything more insane???

I am curious what kind of BS the Singapore media and government stuffs down the people’s throat to result in such brainwashed posters as above, justifying the state-sponsored murder of innocent men and women.

I call them innocent because they are!! They are just pawns in the big game, in which even the top government official in Singapore are involved.

http://www.singapore-window.org/1020naus.htm
“Singapore’s blood money: Hanging drug couriers but investing with their suppliers ”

If you want to keep your society free of drugs and murder, then educate your children. Don’t blame your failure of parenting on the “drugs”, and for god’s sake do some research on drugs first.

I am NEVER going to set foot in Singapore soil and I am never going to give a single cent of my money to anyone remotely related to Singapore. Clean up your backyard before even thinking of taking my money…. and I urge all sensible, civilized people to do the same. Don’t every fly Singapore airlines and whatever you do, make sure you are not financing this fascist state.

Finally, peace and sympathy to all the families who have lost their beloved ones (sometimes innocent) to this Singapore’s war on drugs.
This is what happens when a wolf leads sheep.

And yes anyone who advocates death penalty for drugs is a moron and a retard.

America does think that Singapore is a cruel country that makes it’s citizens terrified. I learned about the dictatorship in Singapore in school. The paper was called, “No gum-chewing allowed” and it made Singapore seem like a terrible, terrible place to live. It said that citizens were scared to sleep at night and they couldn’t trust anyone. Is that paper true or was it total bulls***?

But it wasn’t really bad luck, was it? He knew full well the consequences of his actions; he was caught, therefore he was hanged. He acted with full knowledge of the laws of this country, and they are not unreasonable laws; he can have no plausible defence.

Yes, rehabilitation and retribution are important requirements in a system of justice and punishment, but ultimately the law serves the people of a country, and it serves them best by executing or restraining felons. For four hundred grams of heroin (FOUR HUNDRED GRAMS OF HEROIN!), i think that many many would have suffered. Perhaps some countries have a more relaxed culture on the taking of recreational drugs, but here we think it causes only misery and suffering, not only to the comsumer but all around him.

Justice is for the harmed, not the harmer. That’s our way in Singapore, and I guess our societies are very different then.

And for some clarification, four capital crimes exist: treason, murder, kidnapping and drug trafficking all of which make very big news in Singapore. And this must be emphasised, regardless of either the perpetrator’s or the victim’s social background. Truck driver, businessman, construction worker, CEO, you commit these crimes, you hang. We do give life sentences, but not to murderers, traitors, kidnappers and of course – drug traffickers (FOUR HUNDRED GRAMS OF HEROIN!)

For innocents getting executed, I believe the cases here are very clear-cut. Kidnapping hasn’t happened in a long time. Drug trafficking is simple, carry more than the specified limit and you are guilty. Murder is relatively rare, and the cases that do happen rarely have room for dispute. Treason has never happened. Insanity is not a defence here, only the lack of knowledge that an act is unlawful.

Life here is heavily regulated; we have a patriachial society that doesn’t really like naysayers. But I doubt the public of Singapore will dispute much with this course of action.

Then there’s the idea that cetain groups are unfairly targetted for execution. I dont know how it is like in Singapore (if you have a life sentence at all), but in the USA frequently certain groups that commit capital crimes (i.e. rich white people) usually get life sentences while poor black people get executed. Yet again, captial punishment, because it is not absolute (not everyone gets executed, some get leniency of the court to get life in jail) is inherently not fair, and not justice.

Furthermore the criminal justice systems of the free world are based on a few important ideas: Punishment, Deterrance, Retribution, Rehabilitation.

While punishmend and retribution (revenge) are definately exhibited, there is strong evidence (at least in the USA between states with and without captial punishment) that it’s not a very good deterrent at all. People who do things like commit murder usually do it in the heat of a moment and don’t think of the consequences. Finally in terms of rehabilitation, obviously captial punishment doesn’t allow for this. Since justice is based on the fact that criminals can find the error of their ways (or else the idea of parole would not exist) and reform, captial punishment stops this.

So because innocent people may get executed, because certain groups get punished unproportionally because of discrimination, and because it does not really fulfill the goals of the criminal justice system capital punishment is not the best way to deal with things. Or at least that’s our view in Canada.

Face it: not everyone that goes on CNN is trustworthy. God only knows which nutcase decided to interview THAT nutcase. Take it with a ton of salt, please.

As DM has said, the majority of our citizens are either damn happy or plain apathetic about whatever criminal penalties exist here. Why? Because we are too scared/cowardly/moral/busy/stupid/smart to commit capital crimes, whatever way you put it. I think that applies for every country. Australians, Europeans and Americans may hug trees, but that’s not in the Asian mindset. That’s the way our society functions, and though you may say that we have lower regard for human life, that doesn’t mean all that many people are unhappy about the state of affairs.

The fundamental question is one of law, not human rights or any bullshit oversensitive and overly-free activists are cooking up. That bastard came into our country, and committed a crime that in our penalty for is death. So screw all your opinions on human rights and crap. That’s the law, and it shall be enforced.

My opinion of westerners has dropped again… Japan rocks! XD

One who think that “the practice of capital punishment is barbaric” in a particular country is pure ignorant to me if the person does not understand the social structure and the deeper root of culture in that particular country. It is a fact that the definition of “civilization” varies from country to country and the existence of a standard of civilization for the entire world is utopion and will never happen. Capital punishment will serve the purpose of deterrence when the law enforcement is running well enough and the people realize it.

And CNN is American Media at its best, and well with America practising some new form of isolationism, it will be soon that everyone in America think Singapore is some kind of a cult country that eats babies.

It seems to imply that having capital punishment is a mean through which the state controls the people. That is certainly not true. Capital punishment is only used in criminal cases like murder and drug trafficking. Most Singaporeans, like me, are pretty damn happy that it exists and I’m sure that it will continue to exist even if Singapore turns into a true multi-party democracy someday. So, no, it’s not a matter of state vs people.

Watching CNN last night, I noticed that the only person interviewed for this matter was a nutjob from one of the opposition parties in Singapore. He said something along the lines of “The Singapore people are all against the death penalty, it’s just that the media is all state-controlled, so the people don’t realize it.” What a load of bullshit. From that single interview, I can tell why foreigners might think that the Singapore people are all brutally treated by a facist government who dare use such barbaric punishment as hanging…

Anyway, Darwin Award, anyone? I don’t want to be cold, but this guy knowingly tried this stunt to pay off his brother’s legal fees, and his brother was a heroin addict. The irony. Blood is thicker than water, but come on! Go into (legitimate) business and work hard. It beats rotting for 3 years and then hanged.

There’s something to be said for lifetime imprisonment, though. Some victims and/or their families would gladly pay to lock up a criminal and have them rot in prison till they die. Just don’t give them TV or take them to theme parks like we do here in Canada. Lock them up, solitary confinement if necessary, and break their will by inflicting silence upon them. If they go insane, maybe you can give them the needle, or the rope, or the switch, whatever, because then you’ll have won. Death penalty is sometimes just an easy way out. With life sentences, people will be begging to die. For some very, very angry families out there, it doesn’t get much better than that.