Yong Vui Kong: The boy behind the glass panel

Yong Vui Kong

The following entry was first published on 3rd Dec 2009 on the writer’s Facebook note. It was the day he came face to face with Yong Vui Kong for the first time. Yong is a Malaysian citizen who has been sentenced to death by hanging in Singapore for carrying heroin. He is currently awaiting clemency from the President.

(...) Yong Vui Kong just sits there in the dock looking down. Two policemen sit to either side of him. Two and a half years ago, Yong was found guilty of trafficking more than 15 grams of heroin, and given the mandatory death sentence. Last week, the appeal to get a presidential pardon was rejected with a simple statement-

“I am directed to refer to the petition for clemency of Yong Vui Kong and to inform you that the President, after due consideration of the petition and on advice of the Cabinet, has decided that the sentence of death should stand.”

Yong is a man on death row. But he nearly didn’t qualify for that term ‘man’. He was only 19 – barely out of boyhood – when he was found guilty and sentenced.

There are about 16 of us in the ‘public and media’ gallery of the courtroom. I recognize some online journalists and a few independent documentarians. Three others look like Yong’s relatives. I don’t spot anyone from the mainstream media. Their absence means this is a non-event. A run-of-the-mill story about someone foolish enough to run afoul of Singapore’s drug laws. The amount he was found with – 47 grams – was hardly newsworthy. There was hardly any international outcry, not even from Yong’s country-of-birth. He’s from Malaysia, a country that also sentences drug traffickers to death.

I often wonder how it is that ordinary people can make decisions that literally determines if someone lives or someone dies. The Parliament that votes to legislate the mandatory death penalty. The judge who passes the sentence. The hangman who pulls the lever. The drug baron who tips off the customs to arrest one drug mule so that other drug mules can make it through (this is known to happen). Yong, who, if he knew what he was carrying, must’ve known the package had the potential to destroy lives. Yong who bought his mother a present with the initial $2000 downpayment for the job that would most likely cost his life.

Click here to read the full article

Source: The Online Citizen, Joshua Chiang, December 27, 2011

Click here to sign an oline petition urging Singapore's President to commute Yong's death sentence to a prison sentence. Thank you!

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