Doing Time
I have been reading up on the news lately, with regards to the hanging of this guy called Nguyen from Melbourne, more out of curiousity than anything else that might derived from the news report.
people who would have been following my blog faithfully (yer i knoew i haven’t been blogging much) would have noticed a post back here which talked about this case. the only reason how i noticed this story though, was really because my classmate in my english class picked up on it.
i rarely read the news nowadays, as they do get depressing. occassionally i actually read my time subscription, which again held some depressing news, albeit not as bad as a daily version churn out by newspapers.
at any rate, my classmate picked up on the case as he has been very interested about singapore’s strict laws ever since he talked to me.
most of us know, the lesser “crimes” are often ignored, or not noticed, or easily gotten off with, or else the singapore treasury would be overwhelmingly rich now from the immense amount of fines they drain from old people who spits, who pees in the lifts, staircases and so on.
however, due to misinformation, and perhaps a little pressure set by the government themselves, most foreigners take it that any rules that singapore set out, must be abide by. which on several levels is a good thing.
Let me just reiterate my stance, i am NOT FOR mandatory death sentence, or death sentence as a whole. i believe strongly that a person should die as and when he is supposed to die - aka natural death. our lives was given to us by God, by our parents, and it shouldn’t be up to us or anyone else on earth to determine when and where we should die, for whatever reason there maybe.
However, laws such as death sentence have been there since time beyond recognition. some states have gone and move on towards a life sentence, which in their opinions is a much more humane sentence than sentencing someone to death for major crimes, e.g murder.
considering the treatments and state of some prisons though, i am not sure if life is better than death, and which is more humane.
nevertheless, as i was saying, some crimes were made with certain intentions, and are liable to happen again if a person is NOT put away. in the coldest sense of the word, they might also be a hindrance to both the state and an endangerment to the society if they are left alive, thus the reason why some countries stuck by the death sentence laws.
now, if one looks at the crime caused by Nguyen, and his intentions and reasons behind it, we can see that he DID have a choice. especially with the recent news reports all over about him now. he has many friends, he converted to christianity and has a strong belief in God (more on that later, although they might sound sarcastic to people….) and he had a job.
he had many choices on how to solve his problems. if the debts were illegal… seek help from police? that’s often the first line of help. then one can go about trying to borrow money from friends and pay them back slowly… (as my friend once said: they are there to help). or work something out with the debt collectors/ creditors.
i am sure people can find more options into repaying debt that does not go into illegal activities.
however, when one chooses to perform a crime, with every intention to resolve the problem as soon as possible, in all laziness or other intention, and knowingly does it… what happens then?
i am not trying to be sarcastic towards any country in particular, or to put them down, however, singapore’s tight laws provided for the security and low crime rate that it now has. Compare that with the rest of the world, that’s how it keeps itself successful, by not bowing down to anyone or anything (re: Micheal Fay’s caning issue), it deters crime both locally based or internationally based.
Yes, we have submissive citizens, we are somewhat repressed in voicing our opinions. However, we don’t have extremely huge issues of crimes that range from drug trafficking, to murder, to kidnapping and so on. and that’s what counts.
when one walks into a country, one at least have the basic idea of what the laws and consequences are. and when one intentionally breaks it KNOWINGLY, then i would say that person already is semi prepared for the consequences.
and so should the rest of the world.
just because you are a foreigner, a neighbour, an aid provider, does not give you any special priviledges over anyone else in the world, especially over the locals.
and when you are the one who chose this path, it does not make you a victim or a tragic case. OR make it such a huge injustice in making you do the time that suits your crime, which in this case would be a death sentence.
imagine if Nguyen had successfully carried in the drugs and people bought it:
people might have died from overdose.
people would be totally drugged over it causing social problems at a smaller scale as compared to larger countries, but still social problems enough.
people who knew about his drug trafficking might think singapore is an easy target, and slowly but surely, singapore would be a “drug city”…
i can go on, i am sure more people can think of more things that might happen.
there might be other ways to solve the problems, and there might have been another way to punish him such as extradite him to Australia and let him serve out a life sentence here. However, singapore laws are singapore laws, if laws can be broken so easily because someone is “SPECIAL” in their country’s eyes, then what are laws?
just a facade?
Statement by Mr Koh, the High Commissioner here that i agree with - here
Aussies point of view
- bbc’s news report on it with some strong aussie opinions
- another news report with some comments by the hangman (for some reason, he sounds cocky to me)
- the “tragic” case and thoughts that by providing info he might be spared from the gallows o.o
further on about the case, somehow chee soon juan’s comments have been drawn into the papers and also into some readers’ minds. no offense to anyone in particular, but chee has often stood out as a tool to me. i am not likely to take his wild accusations for real, until he does show huge evidences about them, e.g start an investigation or something.
