Singapore will execute a woman for the first time in the last 20 years on charges of drug trafficking this month. The country has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws, which it says are necessary to protect society and also enjoys support from the public.
Saridewi Djamani’s execution will be the 15th since March 2022 after she was found guilty of trafficking 30 grams of heroin in 2018, as per a BBC report. Under Singapore law, trafficking of more than 15 grams of heroin and 500 grams of cannabis can invite the death penalty.
During her trial, Saridewi testified that she was stocking up on heroin for personal use during the Islamic fasting month. She also did not deny selling drugs such as heroin and methamphetamine from her flat but downplayed the scale of those activities, noted judge See Kee Oon, as per the report.
Saridewi is one of the two women on a death row in Singapore, as per Transformative Justice Collective, a Singapore-based human rights group. After hairdresser Yen May Woen was executed in 2004 for drug trafficking, Saridewi would be the first woman to undergo the death penalty for the first time since then.
British billionaire Sir Richard Branson criticised Singapore for the execution saying the death penalty is not a deterrent against crime.
“Small-scale drug traffickers need help, as most are bullied due to their circumstances,” Branson said on Twitter, adding that it was not too late to stop Saridewi Djamani’s execution.
While the authorities advocated Singapore’s anti-drug laws, the anti-death penalty activists refuted it.
“There is no evidence that the death penalty has a unique deterrent effect or that it has any impact on the use and availability of drugs,” said Amnesty International’s Chiara Sangiorgio in a statement.
“The only message that these executions send is that the government of Singapore is willing to once again defy international safeguards on the use of the death penalty,” she said.
