Singapore 'tops execution league'

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Last Updated: Thursday, 15 January, 2004, 00:05 GMT  

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Singapore 'tops execution league'


The city-state is both safe and tough on crime
Singapore has the world's highest per capita execution rate, according to a report by Amnesty International.
The report said the Asian city-state, which has a population of four million, had hanged more than 400 prisoners in the last 13 years.

The rate is three times that of Saudi Arabia, the next country on the list.

The report urges Singapore to impose an immediate moratorium on executions, to end secrecy and encourage public debate about the death penalty.

Entitled The Hidden Toll of Executions, it says the government does not normally publish statistics about executions, and it is not known how many prisoners are on death row.

  By carrying out high numbers of executions, Singapore is going against global trends towards abolition of the death penalty

Amnesty statement  
"It is high time for the government to seriously re-consider its stance claiming that the death penalty is not a human rights issue," a statement by the human rights organisation said.

"By imposing death sentences and carrying out high numbers of executions, Singapore is going against global trends towards abolition of the death penalty," it added.

The report says that in Singapore marginalised and vulnerable members of society often fall prey to the death penalty.

It singles out drug addicts, many of whom are hanged after being found in possession of relatively small quantities of drugs.

It is often addicts and minor dealers who are hanged rather than those behind the trafficking, it says.