Singapore executed two men for drug trafficking on Thursday, attracting a fresh wave of criticism from human rights activists.
Kalwant Singh Jogindar Singh, a 31-year-old Malaysian, and Norasharee Gous, a 48-year-old Singaporean, were hanged at the Changi prison, the Singapore Prison Service confirmed in an email to Kyodo News.
Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that the executions are "a blatant flouting of international rights norms that prohibit cruel and unusual punishment."
The New York-based human rights group demanded that Singapore take immediate action to end executions for all drug-related crimes and commute the sentences of those on death row.
"Singapore has once again executed people convicted of drug-related offenses in violation of international law, callously disregarding public outcry," said Emerlynne Gil, deputy regional director for research at another rights group Amnesty International.
Earlier this week, more than 100 human rights organisations and experts from over 50 countries, wrote to the United Nations' human rights and drug control bodies to seek urgent intervention and to publicly call on Singaporean authorities to immediately halt the impending executions while asking for a moratorium on all executions.
The executions also come at a time when some Southeast Asian countries are looking to lessen their punishment for drug trafficking or remove the death penalty.
Thailand has just become the first country in Asia to legalise marijuana, while Malaysia said recently it will abolish the country's mandatory death penalty.
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Singapore Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam recently defended Singapore's death penalty for convicted drug traffickers, saying drug traffickers are destroying lives and families, and there are more drugs around the region.
"Afghanistan and Myanmar are among the largest producers of drugs in the world. We are a logistics centre. We would be completely swamped," he said in an interview on the BBC's Hard Talk program, according to the ministry.
He noted that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has said that Southeast Asia is a region "swimming in meth" and Singapore has to cope with that reality.
