Nguyen Tuong Van will almost certainly hang on Friday after Singapore today cut a thin thread of hope that his life could be saved.
In case you don’t know here is a short summary of what happened. Nguyen who is an Australian citizen was caught in Singapore trying to smuggle almost 400 grams of heroin from Cambodia to Australia three years ago. Anyone who carries more than 15 grams of heroin into Singapore will be sentenced to death if found guilty. The Australian Government had appealed for clemency for Nguyen, who has been on death row in Changi prison since being sentenced in March last year. He now faces execution on this Friday (2nd Decmber 2005).
Erm… honestly I have mix feelings for this case. Every country has their laws and punishments for different kinds of crime committed. Every time before we enter, say, Malaysia and Singapore, we are warned that drug smuggling is a serious offence and will be sentenced to death if it exceeds a certain amount. But yet people still try to challenge the law and gamble their life just to get the money they craved for. I don’t understand and perhaps I can never understand why these people put money ahead of their precious life? Or may be you can argue that if they don’t get that amount of money they will be dead as well. Anyway… for me it is still a stupid thing to do – having known that nowadays the customs, particularly in Singapore, is so strict.
We have to know that drugs really blight the community and I am sure that you won’t be please to find out your children are addicted with marijuana or heroin when you become parents. So I have to say the punishment has to be stern as ‘kill one (may) scare the rest’. Whether it has to be a death penalty or not I think it will be an issue to be discussed for years to come. Anyway, for me I rather choose to have a death sentence rather than a life prison sentence. I think I will become insane if I have to spend more than 50 years in jail so I would rather choose to die instantly.
Australian government had appealed for clemency for this young 25 years old Aussie man but every time the clemency was turned down immediately by Singapore. Singapore is well known with its strictness when it comes to laws and I don’t think they will change their mind anyhow anywhere although the Australia government may ask Singapore to have Nguyen Tuong Van's execution referred to the International Court of Justice. And I think it is a bit unfair if they change their mind to call off the death sentence, because it is unfair to have a set of rules for Australian and a set of rules for other nationalities. But recently there are rumours that Australia might protest against this death penalty by using economy boycotts. If that happens I think the relationship between Australia and Singapore will be well deteriorated.
Anyway... back to Malaysia. I am not very certain how the customs in Singapore is but I am very certain how the customs officers in Malaysia are doing their job. This is what exactly happened to my relatives, friends and me every time we enter Malaysia. There are normally two officers, each standing at a side of the gate of the exit, ‘looking’ at us before we walk pass the gate and officially go into Malaysia. They never ever check our baggage to see whether is there anything forbidden to bring into the country. We are allowed to buy a litre of liquor for tax free and any addition of that will be taxed, accordingly to the tax system. But one of my relative was ‘smuggling’ 4 bottles of liquor in her baggage and nothing happen to her.
Last year when I was in the plane back to Malaysia, a Caucasian sitting next to me asked me, what he needs to declare or show to the officers before he enter Malaysia. I was a bit uncertain how to answer him. Really… how should I answer him? I think for a while and I decided to tell him the exact situation which is happening all this while. From his gaze he looks stunned and shock. But anyway I ask him to declare just in case the officers check on him. Then we have a good chat about the cultural in Malaysia, as he was heading there for tourist purpose. This time I was stunned by him. The first thing he asked me was about the ‘bribery cultural’ in Malaysia. I ask him how would him know about this cultural was well practised in Malaysia. Yet he told me Malaysia is well known about that, aren’t we? I did nothing than nod my head.
I want to make a point here. Death penalty is still a legal sentence in some countries around the world. But yet those countries that applied this rule have the worst record of drug smuggling case. If the customs of every country do their job strictly and seriously, the number of drug smuggling cases will be well decreased. Not that I wanted to praise Australia but I do think their customs really do a good job, don’t they? So if every country can take them as an example, and by using newest technology, every drug smugglers could be easily spotted. If that is the case, is there still a need to apply death sentence?
