Singapore will carry out two more executions this week for drug offences, including that of a Singaporean, which would mark the first execution of a woman in nearly two decades.
One of those convicted is a 56-year-old man who is expected to be hanged on Wednesday – the method used by the island – for trafficking around 50 grams of heroin, local NGO Transformative Justice Collective (TJC) reported last midnight.
The family of the convict, whose identity his relatives have preferred to preserve, received notification of the execution last week, complying with the usual island procedure of informing relatives of the hanging just one week in advance.
The second execution, scheduled for Friday, is that of Saridewi Djamani, a 45-year-old Singaporean, sentenced to death in 2018 for trafficking around 30 grams of heroin. If completed, it would be the first execution of a woman in the country since 2004.
Two executions have been carried out this year, in both cases for marijuana trafficking. Singapore has one of the most draconian drug laws in the world, and provides for the death penalty for a minimum of 500 grams of marijuana trafficking and 15 grams of heroin.
The first, in April, was described as “scandalous” by human rights organizations, and the UN asked Singapore to stop it due to doubts about the guarantees of the process, since the lawyers and relatives of the executed man affirmed that he had never touched or seen the drug that they accused him of conspiring to traffic.
After a halt in executions for two years due to the covid-19 pandemic, Singapore broke records last year by hanging 11 prisoners in just a few months, including an intellectually disabled heroin trafficker whose sentence also drew criticism from the international community.
