By Abimbola Ogunnaike

Rights groups on Tuesday, 26 July, 2023 disclosed that Singapore is set to hang two drug convicts this week, including the first woman to be sent to the gallows in nearly 20 years for drug related offence.

Rights watchdog Amnesty International on Tuesday, 25 July, 2023 urged Singapore to halt the impending executions.

“It is unconscionable that authorities in Singapore continue to cruelly pursue more executions in the name of drug control,” Amnesty’s death penalty expert Chiara Sangiorgio said in a statement.

“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.

“As countries around the world do away with the death penalty and embrace drug policy reform, Singapore’s authorities are doing neither,” Sangiorgio added.

 Singapore imposes the death penalty for certain crimes, including murder and some forms of kidnapping.

It also has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws: trafficking more than 500 grams of cannabis and 15 grams of heroin can result in the death penalty.

At least 13 people have been hanged so far since the government resumed executions following a two-year hiatus in place during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Singapore insists that the death penalty is an effective crime deterrent.