On Thursday, July 7th, Singapore executed a Malaysian prisoner who had been on death row for nine years. Kalwant Singh was killed for cocaine trafficking. Singh had made a last-minute bid for clemency, but the Singapore courts turned him down. According to The Star, Singaporean human rights campaigner Kirsten Han verified Kalwant Singh’s death through Twitter. According to Han, Norasharee Gous, a Singaporean caught and indicted in the same case as Kalwant, was also hanged for narcotics trafficking.
‘I regret to inform you that both Kalwant Singh and Norasharee bin Gous were executed. Both families have received their possessions as well as their death certificates. Kalwant’s family is still behind bars, and I’m on my way to Norasharee’s burial ‘, Han said on Twitter.
Kalwant was arrested in Singapore in 2013 on suspicion of having 60.15 grams of diamorphine and trafficking 120.9 grams. He was condemned to death in 2016 and has since been imprisoned. On Wednesday (July 6) night, a candlelight vigil was staged in front of the Singapore High Commission in Kuala Lumpur in an attempt to stop the execution. Campaigners held placards that said ‘#Putrajaya save Kalwant’ and ‘we can live without the death penalty,’ while some participants yelled ‘save, save Kalwant’ and ‘Singapore, stop the execution’.
Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Research, Emerlynne Gil, stated in a statement: ‘Singapore has once again killed persons convicted of drug-related offences in breach of international law, callously dismissing public outcry. Contrary to a worldwide trend toward abolition of the death penalty, Singapore is only one of four nations known to have killed anyone for drug-related offences in recent years. The death penalty is never a solution, and we reject it unequivocally. There is little evidence that it serves as a distinctive deterrent to crime’.
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