83% OF SINGAPOREANS SUPPORT DEATH PENALTY

SINGAPORE: An overwhelming 83% of Singaporeans have voted to retain the
death penalty, in a poll coinciding with a woman's desperate plea to save
her drug-addict brother from the gallows.

The on-line poll by the human rights organisation Think Centre, which
opposes capital punishment, asked one question: "Do you support the death
penalty in Singapore?"

By yesterday, the end of the first week of the poll, 314 of the 377
responses said yes.

Voters appeared unswayed by the Think Centre's argument that the death
penalty "is an inherently unjust and arbitrary punishment, however heinous
the crime."

The poll, which will continue for another week, was started after the civil
rights group published a copy of a clemency plea to President S.R. Nathan
by a Yasmin Mustaffah whose brother Zulfikar has been sentenced to death on
drugs charges.

In Singapore, death by hanging is mandatory for drug trafficking, murder,
treason and certain firearms offences, including discharging a firearm
during a crime.

In the past decade 340 people have been put to death, most for drug
offences, giving the country of 3.1 million people "possibly one of the
highest execution rates in the world, relative to its population,"
according to Amnesty International.

Think Centre said it raised the issue because there is no public debate
about the use of the death penalty "as a violation of the right to life and
the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."