The Australian: Chee Soon Juan: To end death penalty, become a democracy [ 24nov05 ]: "Chee Soon Juan: To end death penalty, become a democracy
24nov05
IN the early hours of tomorrow week, Nguyen Tuong Van will be led from his cell to the yard where he will be hanged. He may struggle or he may walk with composure. He may be given relaxants to help him stay calm. The hangman will place a hood over his head and the noose around his neck. At 6am, the trap door will open and his body will drop and hang until it stops writhing.
When his lifeless being is taken down, his face will be purple, engorged with blood, his neck covered with lacerations, his swollen tongue protruding out of his mouth and his eyes displaced. Involuntary ejections of urine and faeces will stain his clothes.
Such is the gore awaiting Nguyen that no one, not even his family, is allowed to watch the killing. Civility and human decency prohibits us in Singapore from making such executions public. But hanging behind closed doors doesn't make the violence go away, it merely conceals it.
Make no mistake: Nguyen is neither a hero nor a martyr. He is a felon whose crime could have ruined, ended even, the lives of many. For that, my Government says, his life must be taken. The logic follows that because a drug courier's deed causes, or has the potential of causing, the death of a fellow human being, the state has the right to, in return, take the life of the perpetrator.
If such is the reasoning, why then does Singapore continue to allow the sale of cigarettes?
Nicotine found in tobacco is a stimulant and its addictive properties have been likened to that of opium and heroin. Its carcinogenic effects have caused the deaths of millions and caused hundreds of billions of dollars to be spent on health care. If we don't criminalise the sale of cigarettes, much less hang producers and sellers of nicotine, why do we execute peddlers of other types of drugs?
But executing "
