Singaporean rights group retracts execution criticism after govt order

The rights group called the home minister's directive a 'demonstration of state power, not of truth-seeking'

A Singapore-based rights group has denounced the government for forcing them to retract their earlier statement accusing the administration of conducting the arbitrary execution of a citizen convicted of drug possession.

In a press release issued on Oct. 6, the Transformative Justice Collective (TJC), while accepting the government directive to retract their statements, said it “categorically rejects the government’s claim,” that the group spread falsehoods.

“We have put up the Correction Directions not because we accept any of what the government asserts, but because of the grossly unjust terms” of the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), TJC said.

The group stated that the directive from Home Minister K Shanmugam to publish Correction Directions under POFMA is “a demonstration of state power, not of truth-seeking.”

Earlier on Oct. 5, the home ministry refuted allegations from rights groups and activists accusing it of a breach of law in the case of Mohammad Azwan bin Bohari who was executed on Oct. 4.

“[Bohari’s] execution was not arbitrarily scheduled and stayed, nor without regard for due legal process,” the ministry said in a statement published on its website.

The ministry had directed the POFMA Office to issue a Correction Direction to TJC and activist Kokila Annamalai who had also released a statement on Facebook and X lambasting the government for executing Bohari.

The ministry said Bohari had filed two last-minute applications to stay the execution of his death sentence.

The first application in April was accepted by the court and his execution was stayed, while the second appeal in October was rejected by the court.

“Executions are only scheduled when a prisoner has exhausted all rights of appeal and the clemency process,” the ministry said.

Bohari was arrested on Oct. 17, 2015, for the possession of not less than 26.5 grams of diamorphine (pure heroin) for trafficking and was handed down a death sentence by Singapore’s High Court.

According to the ministry’s statement, the quantity seized from Bohari was almost two times the amount that would attract the death penalty as stipulated in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1973.

Bohari’s appeal against his conviction and sentence was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on Oct. 24, 2019. His appeal for clemency was denied by the president twice on March 23, 2020, and June 15, 2022.

Reportedly, Bohari was among some 30 other Prisoners Awaiting Capital Punishment (PACPs) who had filed an application challenging the constitutionality of certain provisions introduced under the Post-appeal Application in Capital Cases on Sept. 19.

The application “was a civil application which had no bearing on [Bohari’s] conviction or sentence, and did not seek a stay of execution,” the ministry pointed out.

Following due process, the ministry said it gave Bohari and his family a notice that his execution was scheduled for Oct. 4.

TJC said that it is “choosing to reserve what resources and energies” it has for its abolitionist work.

“We will not waste our money, time, or energy to engage in long drawn-out fights with the state,” TJC said.

The group added that the law in their view “is little more than a political weapon used to crush dissent and is rapidly losing any credibility it had in the eyes of the Singaporean public,” TJC added.

The group accused the government of spreading “pro-death penalty and pro-War on Drugs propaganda without contestation” with the help of the law.

The group urged the government to abolish the death penalty if it “does not like how bad it looks when the multiple injustices and cruelties of the capital punishment regime are pointed out.”

“That would be a far better use of its power than chucking POFMA orders at activists,” the group added.

Activist Annamalai has yet to issue a correction notice for her posts on Facebook and X platform at the time of publishing this report.

Source: UCANEWS, Staff, October 7, 2024

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