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Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

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A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.

Drug trafficker hanged in Singapore: Narcotics bureau

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SINGAPORE: Singapore on Friday (Aug 2) hanged a convicted drug trafficker, authorities said, in the city-state's second execution this year.

The 45-year-old Singaporean man was executed at Changi prison for trafficking 36.93 grams of pure heroin, more than twice the 15 grams that merits the death penalty in the strict city-state, the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) said.

Rights groups declined to give details about the convict's identity and his case as the family has requested privacy.

"He was accorded full due process under the law, and was represented by legal counsel throughout the process," CNB said in a statement late Friday.

The man was convicted and sentenced to death in February 2019, and his legal appeals and petition for clemency have been dismissed, CNB added.

In February, a 35-year-old Bangladeshi man, Ahmed Salim, was sent to the gallows for the murder of his former fiancée in Singapore.

Friday's execution brings the number of people hanged since Singapore resumed executions in March 2022 to 18, according to an AFP tally.

It had previously halted hangings for a two-year period during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The United Nations, rights groups and other opponents of capital punishment say it has no proven deterrent effect and have called for it to be discontinued.

Singaporean officials insist it has helped make the country one of Asia's safest.

Source: Agence France-Presse, Staff, August 3, 2024

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde



Location: Singapore
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