BadgeIsBack

Capital punishment should be reserved for genocide and the likes.

As for your country alllowing you to be arrested in another regime when they could arrest you locally, for a lesser 'tariff', I don't blame the sods for being a bit miffed lol

I'm starting to wonder if I should ever set foot in any Asian country. Someone has only to stash the drugs in my bag...

Have to admit, not being a frequent visitor to Asia, I was unaware of the dealth penalty for drug offences until recently or at least I made no attemt to secure my bags. I have caught one flight that stopped in Singapore, wouldn't fly through there again. All this actually opens up questions that if you think about it are quite important and not small matters. If someone was trafficking to Aussie, not via Singapore and the airline happens to stop there it does seem a bit bizarre ie you have no intent to traffic in Singapore; you might not even want to get off the plane; you have no interest in supplying Singapore at all and therefore no intent.

To an extent, I believe that criminals should be sent home and tried in their home country. That's the whole point of citizenship I reckon; your state protects you and is responsible for you. That's why you have a passport.

NKSK version 2

What annoys me is that the Australian Government/parliament is protesting about the imminent execution of one of its own citizens and yet it was quite happy to see (did it actually endorse?) the death sentence passed on the Bali 2002 terrosists.

If you really feel abhorrence about the taking of life so much that you ban capital punishment in your own country, how can you justify capital punishment in other countries in certain circumstances but not in others?

If you can justify it in certain circumstances (i.e. terrorist acts) abroad, then surely it should be in place in Australia also for those same acts?

If you cannot justify it in your own country for any crime, then how can you feel staisfaction/pleasure/justice when it occurs in another country?

ginaf

I completely agree, I disagree with the death penalty, but it also frustrates me that they should become the taxpayers liability, life imprisonment should mean just that and they should be made to "earn their keep".

Steve Zodiac

He doesn't deserve to die, especially in this medieval fashion.

I'm staggered at the relative lack of outcry over this. Would the reaction and media coverage be different if this was Shappelle Corby? I think so!

Would it be different if he was the son of someone influential? Too right it would!

Some faces find favour in the media and if they do your in with a chance. But if you don't you're left to dangle.....literally.

In the 21st Century how can someone convicted of this crime in Britain or Australia get treated with leniency while in Singapore the same crime carries the ultimate suspended sentence?

NKSK version 2

I like to think that it's because the UK and Australia are more socially advanced.

Much as I like Singapore as a city, I think that capital punishment is less about crime prevention and deterrence and more about power, oppression and autocratic government (inspite of the facade of democracy).

If it worked so well as a deterent, why do they have to kill so many?

Steve Zodiac

Exactly!

Australia looks to the US as a model for many things. Thankfully with regard to to justice it seems to concur with the European way of dispensing it.

diddy

[QUOTE=Ialibu]

Singapore has all the rights in the world to draft and uphold their laws. We don't find then trying to interfere in our legal process.
QUOTE]

No they don't. This isn't a democracy. It's a nation where individuals do not have free spech or the right to effect the law.

By your argument, you make it right for Mugabe to bulldoze homes, China to execute for financial fraud and Burma to lock away political activists. There is absolutely no weight in this argument whatsoever.

This goes along with my other argument that presupposes that we should all agree with laws simply because they are there. So not one critic of Van Nguyen disagrees with or has broken any Australian/ UK laws.

Wol

Someone steals money: it's called theft. The state takes it - it's a fine.

Someone abducts and hols a person: it's called kidnapping. The state locks someone up - it's imprisonment.

Someone kills: it's murder. The state does it - it's called execution.

I don't see the difference frankly: it's all state-imposed punishment.

One can argue that execution should be confined to first degree murder and that it has no place in drug trafficking punishment but that's a matter for an individual country.

Singapore is one of those that has the death penalty for such crimes and it is no business of another country to try and interfere in that. Just because it's an Australian (and isn't it always now??) involved doesn't give us the right to dictate their policy.

And is it really any coincidence that Singapore is the safest of all the SE Asian countries by far to visit and walk around?

As far as I'm concerned people who play with fire risk getting burned.

diddy

Again, as I've already said, States don't have the right to impose any law they wish especially when that State is a dictatorship. Incidentially, the US and China have high crime rates. It is a well known fact that punishment is not a deterrent whatever that punishment may be. It is the fear of being caught that deters.

dshole

This has nothing to do with capital punishment. It's because Singapore is an oppressive police state, where everyone is shit scared to question.

Shellfish

He'll not get off. The Singapore govt have only ever let two people off a death sentence, both were women, one had a child and the other was dying of cancer.

I have been to several countries (Singapore, Maurituis, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain) which carry the death sentence for drug trafficking and even if you know that you can't possibly have any drugs on you, it's still unnerving going through customs. When my husband got his visa back for a business trip to Taiwan, when he opened his passport, there was a page stuck in his passport clearly detailing the implications if you are caught with drugs. Any one who does so must either be pretty stupid or incredibly desperate.

Initially, my response was the usual 'don't do the crime if you can't do the time' but as the weeks of gone on and the press have put a human face to this story, I feel fear and sadness for him. He is a young man who has a week to live and I can't imagine what that must feel like. His life is over, his mother's life is ruined, his brother's life is ruined. I don't feel that drug mules are the ones who are the real problem, it's the drug lords who should be caught.

I don't think he deserves the death sentence but it's the law of the land, and he made a conscience decision and these are the repurcussions.

brisnick

yes they do. just because you don't agree with them doesn't make their laws wrong. they may look at the australian system and think they are too lenient. who is right?

if the singaporean people do not like the laws, they can vote and change them. if they don't have voting, then they have to overthrow the government. it happened a lot in europe recently, and over history it is this kind of struggle that defines many countries.

the uk, for instance, is much further down the path to civilisation than many other countries.

i don't agree with their punishment, but i think that the australian government should butt out. if i did something so stupid i wouldn't expect the government to step in and pressure another government to "let me off" just because i was an aussie.

he knew what he was doing

diddy

Come off it.You know as well as I do that the Singapore people can't just change their Government like that. Remember when the Chinese tried.

dshole

If it was your child, family member etc what would you be doing?

Oh that's right, you would probably be sat back saying "stupid idiot"

mand8002

It is very sad that this man is going to lose his life for his crime. It is quite irrelevant whether people believe in the death penalty or not as he was caught in a country where the death penalty is the punishment for the crime. Every country has their laws and people should abide by them or accept the consequences........