After almost two decades, Singapore executes a 45-year-old woman for drug trafficking
In Changi Prison on Friday, 45-year-old Saridewi Djamani was hung to death, according to a statement from the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB). The Singaporean woman was found guilty of trying to traffic 31 grams, or exactly an ounce, of heroin. Human Rights Organizations from all over the globe condemned the court’s decision, calling it a “grim milestone” for the nation. According to Amnest International’s death penalty specialist Chiara Sangiorgio, the most recent execution “defied international safeguards on the use of the death penalty.”A conviction was “accorded full due process under the law and was represented by legal counsel throughout the process,” the CNB stated.
It had been around 20 years since the previous execution, which took place in 2004 for hairstylist Yen May Woen. Yen was also found guilty of trafficking drugs. In accordance with Singaporean legislation, trafficking in heroin weighing more than 15 grams is punishable by death. The Lion City has some of the strictest drug regulations in the world, which mandate the death penalty for anybody found trafficking, importing, or exporting a specified amount of prohibited substances including methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, or cannabis and its derivatives.
Activists have noted a quickened pace in Singapore’s executions since the pandemic-induced furlough, with 15 inmates now on death row. To stop drug trafficking and protect the people, the government is still resolute about using the death penalty. According to the CNB, “Capital punishment is only used for the most serious crimes, like the trafficking of significant amounts of drugs that cause very serious harm, not just to individual drug users, but also to their families and the wider society.”
In June, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released a study claiming that the illicit drug trade in Asia had risen to “extreme levels.” According to the study, criminal organizations were creating new trafficking channels to circumvent law police repression. The death sentence has been shown to be ineffective in stopping the illicit drug trade nationwide, according to activists. Transformative Justice Collective and other human rights organizations stressed in a joint statement the importance of breaking up drug cartels rather than maintaining harsh drug laws, which in practice drive out low-level traffickers and couriers who are frequently hired from the margins with intersectional vulnerabilities.
