A 68-year-old man has been hanged for drug trafficking in Singapore in the first execution to be carried out in the city state in more than two years, as the UN rights office expressed concern over a “surge in execution notices”. Abdul Kahar bin Othman was convicted on two charges of trafficking diamorphine in 2013. Kirsten Han, a journalist and activist who has spent a decade campaigning against the death penalty, said Abdul Kahar was executed on Wednesday morning. Han said: “The Singapore government regularly claims that the death penalty is an effective deterrent to drug trafficking. Instead, all Abdul Kahar received was punishment, in the form of incarceration that only served to further alienate him from society and subject him to stigma.

Source: The Guardian March 31, 2022 03:42 UTC