hankyoreh

In December 2002 Australian Nguyen Tuong Van, then 22 years old, born in a Thai refugee camp to a Vietnamese mother fleeing communism, was caught in Changi airport while in transit from Cambodia to Australia with 396 grams of pure heroin. Under Singaporean law, the death sentence is mandatory for anyone caught with more than 15 grams of heroin.

On December 2 last year (2005), he was hanged at dawn, despite a worldwide campaign to save his life, repeated pleas from his Prime Minister on behalf of an emotionally outraged Australia, the tears of his grief-stricken mother and a repentant Nguyen, a first time offender, who was sorry for his crime and accepted his fate.

At the moment of his execution, a large church bell in his home city of Melbourne rang 25 times - once for every year of his life.

But life went on as usual in Singapore, save for the few hundred Singaporeans who petitioned online for his life to be spared and the dozen who held a candlelight vigil outside the prison that morning. Despite the emotional storm Nguyen's case kicked up internationally, it hardly stirred a public debate and received only a muted coverage in the local press.

The government made no apology for their tough stance on law and order and refusal to heed the calls for mercy on Nguyen's young life, arguing that they had an obligation to protect those whose lives could have been ruined by the heroin he was smuggling. The Singapore police said that the heroin, which Nguyen carried strapped to his body, was enough for 26,000 hits, though Australians estimated it was only enough for 6,000 hits.

A majority of Singaporeans support this decision, believing the death penalty is what keeps them safe. According to Amnesty International, Singapore, which has one of the highest gross national incomes per capita (24,220 USD), also has the world's highest per capita execution rate - outstripping even Saudi Arabia, the next highest, by three times. More than 420 prisoners were hung in Singapore in the last 15 years. Although the death penalty is mandatory for the most serious of crimes such as murder and possession of firearms, local civil rights group The Think Centre observes that 70 percent of the executions are for nonviolent crimes such as drug offenses.

A columnist from Singapore’s The Straits Times argued, "if a few innocent people are punished or a few guilty ones are punished too severely," Singapore will be just fine. This view is maintained in spite of the fact that Nguyen had no previous criminal convictions and had smuggled the drugs to pay off the gangland debts of his twin brother, a former heroin addict.

In the days running up to Nguyen's execution, the haunting appearances at the Singapore prison of his mother scarfed in the Vietnamese white of mourning, as she went back and forth pleading for mercy, captured the world's hearts but not the Singapore authorities.

So determined were the Singapore authorities in carrying out the doctrine of crime and punishment, and showing the world how justice had to be meted out, they refused to allow her to hug her son even once before his execution. Under the law, from the moment the death sentence is meted, condemned prisoners are not allowed physical contact to outsiders. It was after the Australian prime minister's intervention that the authorities allowed her to hold his hands and ruffle his hair through the prison bars.

No one is suggesting Nguyen wasn't guilty or that he shouldn't be punished. Those in pleading for his young life to be spared were merely asking for mercy because he had acted out of love for his brother and repented for his crime. Like Shakespeare's infamous play "The Merchant of Venice", the characters acknowledge that the law is on Shylock's side if he so insist on "an eye for an eye", but as Portia, the defense lawyer, puts it: "The quality of mercy is not strained, it drops as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath [and] it is twice blessed - it blesses him that gives and him that takes..." In other words, laws are written by men and can so be interpreted with the human heart.

In executing Nguyen, the Singapore government had taken away three lives: Nguyen, his broken-hearted mother, and his twin brother, who has to live with his guilt.

While Singapore insists on the need for the death penalty to keep the country in order, it does not reflect on the fact that it is often the marginalised and vulnerable members of society that often fall prey to the death penalty, and the fact that it is often addicts and minor dealers who are hanged rather than those behind the trafficking.

Singapore's economic development is often cited as a miracle. But despite its gleaming skyscrapers, posh cafes and well-educated citizens in smart attire, it has yet developed as a humane, cognitive society.

Eunice Lau is former reporter of the Straits Times