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Singapore Skyline: "We should all be ashamed of what the state did on our behalf today"
Photo: WALLACE WOON/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Strict narcotics laws apply in Singapore: a person has now been executed in the city-state for the first time since 2019.
Despite protests from the UN and human rights groups, 68-year-old Abdul Kahar Othman was executed on Wednesday for drug trafficking, according to activists.
"We should all be ashamed of what the state has done on our behalf today," wrote human rights activist Kirsten Han on Twitter.
A representative of a support group for people whose loved ones were sentenced to death confirmed the execution.
Abdul Kahar belonged to the Muslim minority in Singapore.
According to the NGO Transformative Justice Collective, he was arrested in 2013 for heroin trafficking.
Two years later, a death sentence was imposed on him.
According to the NGO, Abdul Kahar was first imprisoned when he was 18 and has been jailed on drug-related charges ever since.
Death sentence via zoom switch
Singapore is one of more than 30 countries worldwide where drug offenses are still punishable by the death penalty, according to Amnesty International.
The UN called on the authorities in Singapore on Tuesday not to carry out the sentence against Abdul Kahar.
"We are concerned about the increase in announced executions this year," said the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The metropolis of millions always hits the headlines.
Only on Tuesday did the judiciary in Singapore reject the last appeal by a Malaysian against his death sentence.
In 2020, a judge had also sentenced a defendant to death during the first corona lockdown for a drug offense via zoom switch.
According to the Singapore Supreme Court, it was the first such sentencing. Human Rights Watch criticized the sentencing as "cruel and inhumane."
bam/AFP
