re: "Branson urges Singapore to halt execution of cannabis convict" (BP, April 24, 2023)
Dear editor,
Sir Richard Branson's call to Singapore to halt the execution of a man duly convicted of the charge of trafficking over a kilogram of cannabis is doubtless well intentioned. However, by making that call conditional on the fact that the man might be innocent of the charge, Sir Richard obscures what is really wrong with Singapore's imminent killing of a person not known to have harmed anyone.
It is always possible that any verdict returned by a fair court after a fair trial is wrong. Mistakes happen, and there is no concatenation of facts that can not also be explained by a different, however exceedingly unlikely, account. That truth is not relevant in this case.
Even if Tangaraju Suppiah is in fact guilty as charged, executing him is a vile injustice. Injustice is not magically made just by passing a law that supports whatever prejudices lurk behind the injustice thereby blessed by law. That Singapore is a sovereign nation that has the legal right to make whatever law it wishes is not being disputed.
It does not, nevertheless, follow that any law is just merely because it is a properly made law. Singapore could tomorrow pass a law to start imprisoning gay men or to execute those who sell unhealthy sugary drinks to children; that would be its legal right, but those laws would also be morally repugnant to decent society.
Singapore should halt the execution because the law with which it accords should not exist. Imprisoning adults who do not directly harm anyone but merely do what some segment of society, even a large majority, personally dislike, which dislike is the only reason for the law behind the proposed killing, is unjust. To execute people who have not harmed or threatened to harm any other is a moral abomination unbecoming a nation that would see itself as civil, civilized, educated, and decent.
This, not that there is some finite possibility that he is innocent, is the reason Singapore should stop the execution. It should then look to amend its antiquated drug laws to better comport with good morals.
Felix Qui
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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.
The text as edited was published in PostBag on April 26, 2023, under the title "Cruel execution" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2557374/nacc-must-comply
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