Singapore executed a 45-year-old citizen for drug trafficking on Friday (July 28), the city-state’s first execution of a woman in nearly 20 years.
“The capital sentence of death imposed on Saridewi Binte Djamani was carried out on 28 July 2023,” said the Central Narcotics Bureau.
The woman was found guilty of trafficking “not less than 30.72 grams” of heroin, which is more than double the amount required for the death penalty in Singapore.
Djamani, who was sentenced by the court in 2018, “was accorded full due process under the law, and was represented by legal counsel throughout the process,” said the bureau in a statement.
“She appealed against her conviction and sentence, and the Court of Appeal dismissed her appeal on 6 October 2022,” the bureau stated, adding that the court also rejected her plea for presidential clemency.
According to the bureau, Djamani was the first woman sentenced to death in the city-state since 2004.
She is the 15th prisoner to be hanged since the government restarted executions in March 2022 following a two-year hiatus due to the Covid epidemic.
Previously, a 57-year-old local man named Mohd Aziz bin Hussain was hung after being convicted of trafficking 50 grams of heroin.
Singapore has some of the world’s harshest anti-drug laws, with a person found trafficking more than 500 grams of cannabis or more than 15 grams of heroin facing the death penalty.
“Capital punishment is used only for the most serious crimes, such as the trafficking of significant quantities of drugs which cause very serious harm, not just to individual drug abusers, but also to their families and the wider society,” the CNB stated.
Human rights organizations are outraged by hanging
The hanging of Djamani has sparked new indignation among human rights activists. “The government of Singapore violates human belief in redemption and the capacity for rehabilitation by insisting instead on taking a drastic and irreversible action,” stated Celia Ouellette, founder of the non-profit group Responsible Business Initiative for Justice.
“Singapore risks not only its international reputation but its financial future as well. It’s time for it to abolish capital punishment once and for all,” she added.
Adilur Rahman Khan, Secretary General of the Paris-based NGO International Federation for Human Rights, called Djamani’s death a “grim milestone” and urged Singapore’s authorities to halt executions.
Chiara Sangiorgio, Amnesty International’s death penalty specialist, stated that the woman’s execution “defied international safeguards on the use of the death penalty.”
“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,” she added in a statement.
