Against a stubborn law, against an apathetic population

After decades of hanging people, the death penalty in Singapore might face the hang itself, sparing Yong Vui Kong’s life.

Yong, the 22-year-old Malaysian who was caught for traffic drugs when he was 18, faces an impending death penalty as his lawyer M. Ravi and 3 others from London who flew in to help try to save his life. Arguing against them is the Attorney General Walter Woon who said that sparing Kong is a matter of policy to be debated in parliament, as the court’s job to carry out the will of the parliament. Reports can be found complied on this blog. A flyer can be found below:

I am not a lawyer but from my basic understanding of law, the society comes up with laws to serve as deterrence. Sentencing Yong Vui Kong isn’t going to solve the problem of the trafficker employing people of his age to smuggle drugs again and again because people like Kong, who is poor, unaware and desperate, can always be found in any society and tricked by drug smuggling rings.

Even after Yong dies, teens like Yong who are caught smugging drugs will always be caught again and again, and they will pay the price for simply ‘ignorance”. They will die again and again. Furthermore, being 18 doesn’t mean he has the awareness of the majority of 18 year-olds in society who know about death penalty for drugs. There is a difference between a person committing the crime knowing of the consequences and a person not knowing of the consequences. We should not hasten to punish both of them with the same penalty.

However, I think for all the valiant efforts of his lawyers and Yong’s remarkable turn for the better (he changed into a much better person while in prison), he might still die. He faces two huge obstacles – Lee Kuan Yew’s support for the death penalty and an obedient, apathetic population who see death penalty as a magic solution to solve problems in society. These two alone will stall any parliamentary debate to change the death penalty.

The worst part of this whole episode is, there is little public discussion on this whole issue. Readers are more concerned about whacking Jack Neo than saving Yong’s life.

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