By Heather Chen, CNN
Nazira Lajim Hertslet is still unable to appear in her brother Nazari’s photos.
“Isn’t it so big and so beautiful?” he said of a series of photographs of the 64-year-old grandfather dressed in casual clothes.
He smiles in a photo, opposes a curtain of white flowers, and even looks playful in some photos. But it is not a satisfied opportunity.
These are the last photos taken of Nazari Bin Lajim before his execution in Singapore for drug trafficking in July.
Nazeri, arrested in 2012 and convicted of trafficking 33. 89 grams of heroin, was hanged at dawn — the fifth of 11 inmates sent to hang the city-state so far this year for drug-related offenses. -old Singaporean boy who was hanged in early October, according to the Central Bureau of Narcotics (CNB).
In an interview with CNN, the Singapore Prison Service (SPS) said it was giving prisoners “the opportunity to have their picture taken on garments sent through their families. “
“This is done to allow family circle members to have recent photos of their loved one,” SPS said. “The decision whether or not to take the photos depends only on the prisoner. “
Nazira said the gesture brought her some comfort and relief in a formula that has inflicted “so much pain and cruelty” on her.
“He looks so satisfied and strong, the strength that he will have to have taken away in this session. “
Singapore insists that capital punishment has the effect of deterring drug traffickers and will have to remain in a position to maintain public safety. Three reports commissioned and published through the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) this week detailed “very strong among Singaporeans” for the use of the death penalty for serious crimes such as drug trafficking. In a study of 2,000 local respondents, more than 70 percent thought executions were more effective than life imprisonment in deterring drug traffickers, the government said.
But even as the government racks up death sentences and executions, activists have noted the increasing scale and frequency of recent drug seizures.
On the same day the local guy was executed, police arrested six other people in two raids that reported 104 grams of ketamine, 10 patches of LSD and 2. 28 kilograms of hashish, enough hashish to “fuel the addiction of some 330 attackers for a week. “
Rocky Howe, a member of the local abolitionist movement Transformative Justice Collective (TJC), said there has been a notable increase in death sentences, at least 10 for drug trafficking this year, according to his calculations.
“For every life lost, there will be a new trafficker,” Howe added. “We want to prevent and ask ourselves if the death penalty is a success in deterring other people from smuggling drugs into Singapore, as the government says. “
Under Singapore’s Drug Abuse Act, trafficking in custody or the loading or export of certain quantities of illegal drugs is subject to the mandatory death penalty.
The death penalty applies to traffickers who transport methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine or hashish products above a certain threshold. In Singapore, the threshold for heroin is 15 grams or more. By comparison, according to U. S. federal traffic penalties, the U. S. A 999 grams of heroin face criminal sentences ranging from five to 40 years. Longer and harsher consequences potentially apply if the use causes death or serious injury.
Ministers from Singapore’s ruling party say the risk of capital punishment is to prevent the city-state from being flooded with drugs in a region that is a global hotspot for drug trafficking.
In May, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said the “scale and scope” of the methamphetamine and artificial drug industry in East and Southeast Asia were “mind-boggling. “In Spain, methamphetamine is the most sensitive fear drug in 2021, according to a briefing note from the Asia-Pacific Centre for Amphetamine-type Information and Stimulants (APAIC).
Seizures and use of methamphetamine have declined this year, APAIC reported, heroin seizures have reached record levels.
“Requesting drug signs also implies an increase in heroin use, with experts believing an increase in drug use for the first time since 2012,” the briefing note said. , beating another 500 people for the first time since 2013. “
Despite the death penalty, giant hashish seizures are also reported in Singapore. A handful of record-breaking transports have made headlines in recent years, with the largest being more than S$2 million ($1. 7 million).
In a five-page article for CNN that referred to government-backed reports and statistics, Singapore’s MHA said it would be “wrong to conclude that drug seizures imply that trafficking rates continue to rise despite the advent of the death penalty. “
“Conversely, without capital punishment, drug traffickers would be bolder and traffic greater quantities of drugs into Singapore,” he said.
Until recently, Singapore and some of its closest neighbors were united in their difficult war on drugs.
Vietnam is one of the biggest executioners in the region.
Executions are a state secret, yet a rare Ministry of Public Security report that was made public and published in state media in 2017 revealed 429 executions in the country’s prisons between 2013 and 2016. Current online death figures are also known, rights teams say.
After a pause in 2021, military-ruled Myanmar has also carried out executions this year, that of two prominent democracy activists who were executed in July after being accused by the junta of “terrorist acts”, raising concern and concern among those who remained. Bars.
But countries have taken other paths.
Malaysia, Singapore’s closest neighbor, removed drug trafficking from its list of crimes punishable by death in 2018 and announced measures in June to abolish the mandatory death penalty.
Indonesia, which, like Singapore, has long executed others convicted of crimes such as terrorism, homicide and drug trafficking, is now introducing a “probationary death penalty,” which authorities say will allow judges to hand down death sentences with probationary periods of 10 years if a defendant “shows remorse” or evidence that he did not play a significant role in the crime committed.
However, Singapore is unlikely to change its brain on its path to drugs, which has been key to preserving its global reputation as a thriving financial and financial center, according to local experts.
“Each country has the right to decide how it treats the maximum of serious crimes, in addition to whether or not to apply the death penalty,” said Eugene Tan, a law professor at Singapore University of Management. Tan, who once served as an appointed member of Singapore’s parliament, said courts do not “hand down death sentences lightly. “
“The government’s uncompromising attitude stems from a long-standing commitment to law and order,” Tan said.
And because Singapore is a major transportation hub close to many regional drug production hubs, Tan said it was “unlikely to follow in other countries’ footsteps in liberalizing drug policies. “It softens its stance as other countries have done in recent years,” he said.
UNODC Representative for Southeast Asia Jeremy Douglas told CNN in May that if Southeast Asian countries want to curb drug trafficking, they want to replace their problem.
Governments treat drug use and addiction as fitness problems, not offenders, through “public fitness education, treatment provision, care and support, rehabilitation and reintegration programmes,” he said.
“Nor should the death penalty have a deterrent effect on drug trafficking,” Douglas added.
An Amnesty International spokesperson noted that “relatively small quantities of drugs” were reported in conviction cases in Singapore, and said convicted traffickers were those who held “lower positions in drug trafficking networks. “
This raises the question of whether their deaths would “significantly disrupt drug trafficking,” the spokesman said.
But in its statement to CNN, Singapore’s MHA said “first-hand accounts” showed how many traffickers were intentionally trafficking below the legal threshold.
“Drug dealers know capital punishment, but they traffic for money,” the ministry said. “Traffickers are making a cynical calculation to traffic drugs for profit, ignoring the thousands of lives they would destroy. “
It’s been 3 months since Nazari’s ended.
Her sister has some of her photos stored on her phone. “I look at the pictures every time I miss him,” she said.
“We didn’t ask for them to be taken away, but it’s still a great gesture,” he said, adding that the circle of relatives had been asked to provide outfits.
“I don’t know how this practice came about, why the photographs were taken, but it shows how (disconnected) the criminal and justice formula is,” he said.
“Because in the end they killed my brother. “
El-CNN-Wire™
CNN’s Jake Kwon contributed to this report.
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