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Singapore leads world in executions
<B>SINGAPORE</B> leads the world in executions, putting to death more people than Saudi Arabia, China and Sierra Leone on a per capita basis, rights group Amnesty International said on yesterday.
Executions were ?shockingly high? and ?shrouded in secrecy? in Singapore, Amnesty said, calling on the government to abolish the death penality by issuing a moratorium on all executions and commuting all death sentences to prison terms.
About 400 people have been hanged in Singapore since 1991, mostly for drug trafficking, giving the wealthy city-state of four million people possibly the highest execution rate in the world relative to its population, Amnesty said.
Singapore?s drug laws are among the world?s harshest. Anyone aged 18 or over convicted of carrying more than 15 grams of heroin faces mandatory execution by hanging. But drug addiction was still a problem, Amnesty said, adding that there was ?no convincing evidence? high execution rates had curbed drug use in Singapore.
It cited Singapore Central Narcotics Bureau statistics showing 3,393 people arrested for drug offences in 2002 and the number of new drug abusers up 16 per cent from 2001. Use of methamphetamines, or ?ice?, also showed a significant increase.
?Many of those executed have been migrant workers, drug addicts, the impoverished or those lacking in education,? the human rights group said in an 18-page report titled Singapore: The Death Penalty ? A hidden toll of Executions.
Between 1994 and 1999, an average of 13.57 executions were carried out per one million of the population, three times higher than the next country on the list, Saudia Arabia, it said.
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