Yong Vui Kong: Young Malaysian at Risk of Execution in Singapore

Yong Vui Kong

Yong Vui Kong, a young Malaysian man on death row in Singapore, was fortunately not executed as expected in 2011. On 15 January, friends and activists risked arrest by publicly gathering to mark his upcoming birthday. The election of Singapore's new President provides a fresh opportunity to call for Yong Vui Kong's life to be saved.

On 15 January 2012, friends and supporters of Yong Vui Kong gathered at the Speakers' Corner at Hong Lim Park in Singapore to celebrate in advance his 24th birthday. Public gatherings of activists and human rights defenders are rare in Singapore, where freedom of peaceful assembly is restricted and freedom of expression limited. Despite this, around 70 people gathered that Sunday to mark Yong Vui Kong's birthday and to continue to appeal for his life to be spared.

Yong Vui Kong has only one wish for his 24th birthday: a second chance in life after spending more than half of his adult life in death row. In July 2011, a few months after Singapore's Court of Appeal rejected another appeal against Yong's sentence, he wrote:

"For me, if tomorrow is my last night, I do not have a choice either. I just have to face the fact. After all, I was the one who made a mistake and I have repented. You ask me if I would feel frightened, I think I may not be, because I am starting to become familiar with how it feels to face death, don't forgot that in this short four years, I have brushed past death many times. I have "died" many times…."

"I am also grateful that members of society are willing to forgive me, being able to live until today is my greatest fortune."

Yong's lawyer appealed against his death sentence by challenging the constitutionality of the mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking and seeking judicial review of the clemency process. The appeals were rejected in April 2011, clearing the way for Yong's execution. His last hope is clemency from the President of Singapore, who can grant this only on the advice from the Cabinet. Clemency for a death sentence in Singapore has reportedly been granted only six times since independence in 1965.

Please write immediately in English, Mandarin or your own language:

- Stop the execution of Yong Vui Kong;

- Suspend all executions and the imposition of new death sentences as a step towards total abolition of the death penalty;

- Revoke legislation establishing mandatory death sentences.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 27 February 2012 TO:

President of Singapore

His Excellency Dr. Tony Tan Keng Yam

Office of the President

Orchard Road

SINGAPORE

238823

Email: istana_general_office@istana.gov.sg

Or fill-in the comment form at the President's office via: http://www.istana.gov.sg/content/istana/feedback.html

Salutation: Your Excellency

And copies to:

The Online Citizen

A Community of Singaporeans

(an alternative news source for Singapore)

Email: theonlinecitizen@gmail.com

Ambassador Chan Heng Chee, Embassy of the Republic of Singapore

3501 International Place NW, Washington DC 20008

Tel: 202 537 3100 ¦ Fax: 1 202 537 0876 ¦Email: singemb_was@sgmfa.gov.sg

Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office if sending appeals after the above date.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Under Singapore's drug laws, a defendant is automatically presumed guilty of drug trafficking in cases where possession of heroin exceeds two grams. This provision violates the defendant's right to be presumed innocent of a crime until proven guilty.

Singaporean law also makes the death penalty mandatory for trafficking more than 30 grams of heroin. In 2007, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Philip Alston said, "Singapore's decision to make the death penalty mandatory keeps judges from considering all of the factors relevant to determining whether a death sentence would be permissible in a capital case."Urgent Action Network

Amnesty International USA
600 Pennsylvania Ave SE 5th fl
Washington DC 20003
Email: uan@aiusa.org
http://www.amnestyusa.org/uan
Phone: 202.509.8193
Fax: 202.675.8566

Source: Amnesty International, January 18, 2012

An online petition urging Singapore's president to commute Yong's death sentence can be signed here.

Related articles:

Death Penalty News: Yong Vui Kong - Last letter from death row ...

Jul 11, 2011

YONG VUI KONG, a Sabahan, was sentenced in November 2009 to death for drug trafficking. He was 19. On April 4, Yong lost his final appeal against a mandatory death sentence. He will be executed soon unless he is ...

http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/

Death Penalty News: Yong Vui Kong: The boy behind the glass panel

Jan 11, 2012

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...

http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/

Death Penalty News: Yong Vui Kong: The Tenth Letter - Drugs and ...

Jun 28, 2011

Yong Vui Kong has exhausted all his appeals. His last hope rests on presidential clemency. Please click on the photo to sign a petition urging Singapore's President to commute Yong's death sentence to a prison sentence.

http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/

Comments

California | Becerra vows to extend moratorium despite past support for capital punishment

SACRAMENTO—Democrat Xavier Becerra defended the death penalty while serving as California’s attorney general, a punishment his office actively sought in the case of a gunman convicted of an Orange County mass shooting, but as the front-running candidate for governor, he has vowed to block executions if elected in November. Becerra said he will extend the blanket reprieve for all death row inmates that Gov. Gavin Newsom enacted by executive order in 2019, saying he supported “moving our state away from a costly, flawed system that disproportionately impacts Black and brown communities and too often gets it wrong.”

California | He spent 19 years on death row. His conversion to Judaism helped him endure

Johnny Morales struggled to find sleep. He dozed off for a few moments, but officers came to his death row cell and woke him a little after midnight. They needed to inventory and box up his belongings. He was leaving San Quentin. Hands cuffed behind his back, he walked across the empty upper yard in the dim gray hours before daylight. An officer walked alongside him step for step, black latex-gloved fingers holding onto Morales’s arm. For almost 20 years, Morales could only experience the world outside his 4-by-11 foot cell in the condemned housing unit like this—chained and escorted by officers. Security protocols required all death row residents be handcuffed or shackled any time they were out in open space with staff.

Iran | Afghan Citizen Executed in Wheelchair Due to Severe Mobility Disability

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Iranian authorities have reportedly executed an Afghan citizen, identified as Valijan Nourzay, at the central prison in Rafsanjan, according to the human rights organization Hengaw. Hengaw said in a statement on Sunday, September 6, that Nourzay was executed early Wednesday last week at Rafsanjan Central Prison. According to the organization, Nourzay had a severe mobility disability and was executed while in a wheelchair. Hengaw, citing informed sources, reported that Nourzay had been pursued by Iranian authorities three years ago over an alleged murder. He was reportedly seriously wounded after Iranian security forces opened fire on him in Rafsanjan before being arrested and later sentenced to death.

Florida executes Daniel Owen Conahan Jr.

In Florida’s 15th execution this year, man put to death for killing linked to ‘Hog Trail Murders’ A Florida man convicted in one of a series of suspected killings that became known as the “Hog Trail Murders” in the 1990s was put to death Thursday, becoming the state’s 15th person executed this year. Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. after receiving a 3-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He had been sentenced to die for the 1996 kidnapping and strangling of Richard Allen Montgomery, whose mutilated body was found in a wooded southwest Florida area where authorities found the remains of at least 6 people over a 3-year span.

Egypt TV presenter and 11 others sentenced to death in major drugs case

Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa and 11 others have been sentenced to death by hanging after being convicted of drug trafficking and rape, while nine defendants received life sentences and seven were acquitted. Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa, 39, has been sentenced to death by hanging along with 11 other defendants after being found guilty in a drugs case involving a criminal gang accused of importing ingredients used to manufacture narcotics for sale.

Afghanistan | Signs that horrific brutality is set to return

Kneeling next to a ditch, deep in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, a 22-year-old woman draws her last breath in a 'desert court' before she is shot in the back with an AK-47. Her executioner? Likely her hardline militant husband, in what the Taliban consider an 'honour killing'. It took less than an hour to decide Najiba had been adulterous – although it has been suggested this accusation was fabricated to protect her husband's reputation. Adultery is a crime that deserves capital punishment under the Taliban's strict interpretation of Sharia law. Fourteen years on from her death, little is known about her story, like many women slowly being erased from the fabric of Afghan society.

He Spent 27 Years on Death Row as a Wrongfully Convicted Man. What Comes Next?

23-hour solitary confinement. 115-degree heat. Jimmie Duncan is haunted by the decades he spent in Louisiana’s Angola Prison—and how, even after being released, he still isn’t truly free. Jimmie “Chris” Duncan wiped the sweat off his forehead as he assessed his temporary home from the parking lot of a rundown motel in central Louisiana. Sure, there’s drug dealing and prostitution, he said on a recent summer afternoon. And he suspected his neighbors were cooking meth on a floor below the room he paid $350 a week to rent.

Singapore | Ministry of Home Affairs refutes claims that death penalty was discussed during visit by Israel's security ministry

The Ministry of Home Affairs says discussions with the Israeli government involved the sharing of best practices in emergency response, crime prevention, and forensics. Issues relating to the death penalty “were never part of the meeting and were not discussed." SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday (Sep 11) refuted claims by an Israeli media outlet that the death penalty was discussed during a visit by an Israeli delegation in May. The Haaretz newspaper reported on Sep 7 that a delegation comprising representatives from the Israel Prison Service and National Security Ministry made a “secret visit” to Singapore that month.

Thailand | Killer of hotel receptionist sentenced to death

Hua Hin Provincial Court has sentenced a man accused of killing and robbing a hotel employee in January to death, ruling that the crime was so serious and shocking that there were no grounds for leniency despite his guilty plea. The court handed down the sentence on Tuesday in a case involving the killing of a hotel employee during a robbery in Hua Hin district of Prachuap Khiri Khan province.

Arizona AG seeks execution date for man convicted in 1995 trooper killing

Trooper Bob Martin was killed during a traffic stop on the Beeline highway; execution for his killer could be as soon as January PHOENIX (AZFamily)—The Arizona Attorney General is asking for an execution date to be set for a man convicted in the killing of an Arizona State Trooper over 30 years ago. On Aug. 15, 1995, Trooper Bob Martin was shot and killed while performing a traffic stop along the Beeline Highway.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog