Protest against death penalty at reopened Speakers' Corner
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Hundreds turned up at the Speakers' Corner in Hong Lim Park yesterday, with the venue recently reopened after a two-year closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
They were attending a protest against the death penalty in Singapore. The participants at the two-hour event held placards with signs such as "Execution is not the solution" and "Help not hang", as they called for the Government to abolish the death penalty. The event was also live-streamed online.
The Speakers' Corner, which is the only place in Singapore where protests can legally be held, was closed for almost two years from April 2020, when the Republic imposed a circuit breaker period to curb the spread of Covid-19.
Crowd sizes for events at the space are limited to 950 people at a time, according to the National Parks Board's (NParks) website. Applications for events there opened on March 23, after Singapore announced the gradual easing of restrictions towards a new phase of living with Covid-19.
NParks' website showed that the space has been booked for several events this month and in June.
Activist Jolovan Wham, who organised yesterday's event, was among the 12 speakers. In his speech, he said that recent cases in Singapore have helped to gather both local and international momentum around the cause to do away with the death penalty here.
A 68-year-old Singaporean man, Abdul Kahar Othman, was executed last week. He had been sentenced to death in 2015 for drug trafficking.
Malaysian drug trafficker Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, who was in 2010 convicted of trafficking heroin, saw his appeal against the death penalty dismissed by the Court of Appeal last week.
Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam said in Parliament last month during the debate on the Ministry of Home Affairs' (MHA) budget that the death penalty continues to remain relevant in Singapore.
He said the majority of residents here still support the use of the death penalty and agree that the death penalty deters serious crime, citing preliminary findings from a survey conducted by the MHA last year.
