THIS MAN WILL HANG.

Why kill a mere pawn in the game? How will it benefit the society to have a harmless man killed; aside from deterrence, which can be easily be dealt with by sentencing him to 25 years imprisonment.

Like the sociological interpretations crime receives, deterrence is only an assumption. At worst, it creates a kind of self-delusion by which we lull ourselves into thinking that deterrence will banish crime.
Time to Retire the Noose by Jaya Prakash"

The death penalty has been imposed on Nguyen after being convicted of drug trafficking. Pleas of Clemency have failed.

The law tries to be objective but it does not address the subjective. It is murder made legal by the state. The law is not just when it becomes too rigid to go deeper beyond the surface issue: i.e. the criminal act of drug trafficking.

What was his intent?
A.To traffic drugs or
B.To clear his brother’s debt, which required him to traffck drugs (yes surely it was a conscious decision; but we are only looking at his intent here, from his perspective)

Was he in the wrong?

Superficial Analysis

1.Yes. By law. He committed a crime of trafficking, the law says above a certain limit = mandatory death penalty.
2.Aware of implications, Singapore’s strict drug policy; risked it
3.Singapore’s By-The-Book Stance: Ok, done. No clemency, no buts, you go, pitiful or not.

Alternative Analysis

1.Crime of being blinded by the greed of gaining money in exchange for helping a syndicate to traffic drugs

2.Put society at risk: drug use

Does he pose a threat to society?
1.He has a clean record
2.He gave the Government full cooperation as an informant,
3.Yes we should not feel sympathetic because it was his conscious decision to enter but the death penalty is certainly not just punishment and it will not correct any wrong.

It is only a pitiful waste of a perfectly functional life, of a boy who is willing to undergo rehabilitation, correctional change or whatever reform system the government may provide. Lock him up for half of his life, it’ll still be entirely more humane than pushing an undeserving young man to the gallows. The sentence meted down is not proportionate to his crime, his reason for entering the crime.

This is especially disheartening:
In Singapore, Nguyen's case has barely registered. After a brief report on his failed clemency appeal, the broadsheet Straits Times ran a follow-up wire agency story, filed from Canberra, on Australia's reaction to the decision. The story ran in the world section, as if it had nothing to do with Singapore.

There have been no opinion pieces, and letters to the editor have supported the Singapore Government's stand.Fighting Against the Tide of Opinion


What about all the cold-hearted rapists that get acquitted who slip back into the folds of society only to rape again? Sentencing them to death is a more sensible option than a mere mule, a nobody to the big syndicates. What do they care? Will hanging Ngyuen prevent them from using more innocent people to traffick their products?

But in working with the law surely you must take your human conscience out or your puppet-like pocket of a brain and look beyond the bloody surface. Murdering this accidental criminal will not solve the root of the problem.

Jaya Prakash sums it up best:The idea that drug smuggling can be fixed by fixing an appointment with the hangman is seriously flawed.

P/S: This post may be a little haphazardly structured, with links all over the place, but im tired and its irritating the way lives are so loosely dealt with. Go to WWW.THEAGE.COM.AU and Search "Nguyen+Dealth Penalty+ Singapore" and read the articles to come to your own sensible conclusion. Goodnight.

Other News Articles:
Fighting Against the Tide of Opinion
In Singapore, Nguyen's case has barely registered. After a brief report on his failed clemency appeal, the broadsheet Straits Times ran a follow-up wire agency story, filed from Canberra, on Australia's reaction to the decision. The story ran in the world section, as if it had nothing to do with Singapore.