Singapore will execute a woman for the first time in 20 years on Friday, one of two executions scheduled for Sunday.
Singaporean Saridevi Jamani was sentenced to death in 2018 after being found guilty of possessing about 30 grams of heroin for sale, abolitionists said.
If the sentence is carried out, activists believe that she will be the first woman executed in Singapore since 2004, when a 36-year-old hairdresser was hanged for drug smuggling.
Mohd Aziz bin Husain, a 56-year-old Singaporean, was told he would be executed today, the Guardian reported. He was sentenced to death in 2018 after being found guilty of smuggling around 50 grams of heroin.
Singapore has one of the strictest anti-drug laws and has come under international criticism in recent years for executing prisoners convicted of drug possession.
Saridevi is one of two women awaiting the death penalty in Singapore, Kirsten Han, a journalist and activist who has been fighting for the abolition of the death penalty for ten years, told The Guardian.
"The authorities do not look at the fact that the majority of people sentenced to death come from marginalized and vulnerable groups. People on death row are those considered expendable by both the Singaporean state and drug lords. This is not something that Singaporeans should be proud of," she said.
Authorities argue that the death penalty is an effective deterrent to drug-related crimes, that it makes their country safe and that the population supports it. He also claims that the court processes are fair.
A survey by Amnesty International found that Singapore was one of several countries that executed people for drug-related crimes last year, along with China, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Vietnam probably carried out executions, but the exact figures are unknown.
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