Authorities in Singapore have executed a woman for the first time in almost 20 years after she was convicted of trafficking heroin.
Saridewi Binte Djamani, 45, was sentenced to death in 2018 for trafficking around 30 grams of heroin.
The execution was carried out despite appeals from rights groups, who argue capital punishment has no proven deterrent effect on crime.
‘The capital sentence of death imposed on Saridewi Binte Djamani was carried out on 28 July 2023,’ the Central Narcotics Bureau said in a statement.
She was convicted of trafficking ‘not less than 30.72 grams’ of heroin, more than twice the volume that merits the death penalty in Singapore.
Djamani ‘was accorded full due process under the law, and was represented by legal counsel throughout the process,’ the bureau said.
‘She appealed against her conviction and sentence, and the Court of Appeal dismissed her appeal on 6 October 2022,’ the bureau said, adding that her plea for presidential clemency was also rejected.
Anti-death penalty activists said the last woman known to have been hanged in Singapore was 36-year-old hairdresser Yen May Woen, also for drug trafficking, in 2004.
Djamani today became the 15th prisoner sent to the gallows since the government resumed executions in March 2022 after a two-year hiatus during the Covid-19 pandemic.
A local man, Mohd Aziz bin Hussain, 57, was hanged on Wednesday for trafficking about 50 grams of heroin.
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.
Rights watchdog Amnesty International last week 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.
Speaking of Djamani’s death, Kirsten Han, a journalist and activist who has spent a decade campaigning against the death penalty, said: ‘Once she exhausted her appeal options it was a matter of time that she would be given an execution notice.
‘The authorities are not moved by the fact that most of the people on death row come from marginalised and vulnerable groups.
‘The people who are on death row are those deemed dispensable by both the drug kingpins and the Singapore state. This is not something Singaporeans should be proud of’, she said, according to The Guardian.
Ms Han said: ‘This is the fourth execution this year and there will be another one next week. It’s horrible for the families and worrying for other death row inmates.’
There ‘is no sign of the government wanting to give an inch,’ she added.