The death penalty myopia.

I am breaking my resolution of maintaing radio silence while I am out of Singapore because of the reports on Law Minister Shanmugam’s comments on the issue of the mandatory death penalty. It was an incredibly disappointing read, as it shows that the Law Minister is also a sufferer of what I have begun to call the Death Penalty Myopia.

Death Penalty Myopia occurs when a person (or people) are somehow just unable to see the true issues that need to be discussed with regards to the (mandatory) death penalty, and prefer to just take an over-simplified and generalistic view of the entire issue. I have met and discussed the MDP with many people who suffer from Death Penalty Myopia, and at the end of the day there is nothing to be done but to agree to disagree, and leave them with their views. However, in this case it is exceptionally disappointing and disheartening because the man in question is the Law Minister of my country.

In his remarks, Minister Shanmugam does not touch on the many human rights concerns and issues that have been brought up by campaigners and lawyers, choosing instead to go for the extremes and gloss over the whole issue, repeating the oft-made “slippery slope” and deterrent arguments that I have already argued against in one of my earliest posts on this blog. For the sake of brevity (or rather, my version of brevity) I will not go into them again.

What is even more shocking is his admission of knowledge that the MDP only hangs the drug mules, while the drug barons are untouched. The fact that he doesn’t seem to think this circumstance is that much of a problem is also incredibly worrying. It seems to me as if the Minister – on behalf of the government – is saying that they are happy to keep hanging the small fry while the drug barons sun themselves on their private yachts, or indeed, get orchids named after them. They are going to keep pushing bitter placebos down our throats without actually making any effort to fight the disease.

You know the real message that we are sending to the drug barons with this current stance? “It’s all right, they’re just going to hang this little dude I don’t give a damn about, and I’ll still be untouched. SEND HIM IN! RELEASE THE DRUGS!” If we were really looking to clean Singapore’s streets of drugs, surely we shouldn’t concentrate on hanging people who ultimately have no control over the drug flow, and go for the big guns? By consistently going after the drug mules while leaving the barons alone, we are no better than schoolyard bullies that pick on smaller kids because they don’t have the balls to go after the bigger ones. Except we’re worse, because schoolyard bullies don’t actually murder the smaller kids.

Please, please, Singapore, shake off this Death Penalty Myopia and see the issue for what it really is: something complex and horrific and in urgent need of review. Please, please, see drug mules like Yong Vui Kong for what they are: people less fortunate than us who have made mistakes. They still have families, they still have regrets, they still have the potential to change. They are still human, and we cannot sentence them to death just in case. We are not asking for them to be released with no consequences, but just for them to get a fair trial and sentencing that fits both the criminal and the crime. We are not saying that every person with a sob story should be released, but that at the very least the judge should have some power to consider their individual case and sentence. To send them to the gallows without proper consideration only makes monsters out of all of us.