Amidst a spate of hangings, Singaporeans have launched a rare protest against the government for maintaining capital punishment for drug trafficking.
Protesting is illegal in most places in Singapore without the prior approval of authorities. The exception is in “Speakers Corner,” downtown, where about 400 people gathered to protest the executions. They suggested that capital punishment has not only failed to effectively deter crime, that it is a barbaric practice.
Singapore carried out its first hanging in three years last week of a drug trafficker, and many suspect that the next in line could be Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, an intellectually disabled Malaysian national convicted of the same crime.