Suaram and Pusat Komas, together with Singapore-based Think Centre, and Thailand’s Forum-Asia, said in a joint statement that Singapore should review and abolish the capital sentence and impose a moratorium on already decided cases.
“At a time when many nations are moving away from the death penalty, Singapore’s continued use of capital punishment sends a troubling message to the world,” Forum-Asia executive director Mary Aileen Diez-Bacalso said in the statement.
The UPR, conducted under the UN Human Rights Council, reviews the human rights situation in all 193 UN member states every five years.
Singapore last took part in the review in May 2021 and received 324 recommendations, many of which addressed its use of the death penalty.
The government rejected 17 of the recommendations, including those calling for the abolition of capital punishment, and the establishment of a moratorium on executions.
The groups said using capital punishment for drug trafficking is at odds with the evolving international human rights norms, as it does not meet the threshold of the “most serious crimes”.
They also said the death penalty is not effective as a deterrent for drug offences, and disregards the human capacity for remorse, rehabilitation, and change.
Jerald Joseph, director of Pusat Komas and executive committee chairman of Forum-Asia, said the death penalty, as practised by states, should by now be outdated and abolished.
“It contradicts the spirit of the Sustainable Development Goals and the shared pledges made during the Covid-19 pandemic to leave no one behind,” he said.
Datchinamurthy was executed in Singapore yesterday for smuggling 44.96g of diamorphine into the country.
Singapore’s central narcotics bureau confirmed the execution in a statement, maintaining that Datchinamurthy was “accorded full due process under the law and was represented by legal counsel during trial and appeal”.
His clemency petitions to the Singapore president were also unsuccessful.
Datchinamurthy was arrested in 2011 and sentenced to death in 2015. He had been scheduled to be executed in 2022 but obtained a stay of execution pending a legal suit against the Singapore government over his death sentence.
He was one of four Malaysians on death row in Singapore whose cases the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia had urged the government to intervene in.
The other three are P Pannir Selvam, S Saminathan and R Lingkesvaran.