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No link sorry as I got this from a news mailing list. Anyway, this kind of info might be interesting for some.

The Age
Friday, January 16, 2004

Singapore's Execution Rate 'Shocking' - Amnesty Intl

By Mark Baker
Asia Editor

Singapore - Amnesty International has accused Singapore of hiding probably
the world's highest per capita use of the death penalty, with many prisoners
arbitrarily killed for relatively minor drug offences.

In a scathing report, the human rights watchdog says more than 400 prisoners
have been hanged in Singapore since 1991 - three times as many, compared to
its total population, as Saudi Arabia and almost seven times as many as China.

"This gives the small city state possibly the highest execution rate in the
world relative to its population of just over 4 million people," the report
says.

"It is not known how many prisoners are currently on death row but the
shocking death toll from executions continues to rise."

Amnesty accuses the Singapore Government of persisting with the death penalty
- often against foreign nationals - despite growing international opposition
and despite evidence it is failing to act as a deterrent.

"The death penalty is a violation of one of the most fundamental human
rights: the right to life," the report says. "It is the premeditated and
cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state in the name of justice. It is the
ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment."

The report coincides with the continuing trial of Melbourne salesman Nguyen
Tuong Van, who is accused of carrying 396.2 grams of heroin while in transit in
Singapore on a flight to Australia in December 2002. If convicted, he faces a
mandatory death sentence.

Amnesty accuses Singapore's authoritarian government of hiding the extent of
executions by not publishing complete statistics and stifling debate on the
issue in the officially controlled media.

"Official information about the use of the death penalty in Singapore is
shrouded in secrecy and the Government does not normally publish statistics about
death sentences or executions," the report says.

Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong told the BBC in a recent interview that between
70 and 80 people had been executed last year. When queried about why he did
not know the precise number, he said: "I've got more important things to worry
about."

Two days later, Mr Goh's office retracted that statement and said the number
of executions between January and September last year was 10.

THE DEATH TOLL

- Singapore is believed to have the world�€™s highest per capita execution
rate. According to the UN Secretary-General�€™s report on capital punishment,
covering 1994 to 1999, Singapore had a rate of 13.57 executions per 1 million
population.

- This is followed by Saudi Arabia (4.65), Belarus (3.20), Sierra Leone
(2.84), Kyrgyzstan (2.80), Jordan (2.12) and China (2.01).

- The largest overall number of executions for the same period took place in
China, followed in descending order by Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United States,
Nigeria and Singapore.

Amnesty says Singapore's use of mandatory death penalties for drug crimes,
murder and firearms offences was compounding the "brutalising" impact of
executions on society by denying judicial discretion.

It says a series of clauses in the country's drug and firearms laws also
contain presumptions of guilt that conflict "with the right to be presumed
innocent until proven guilty and eroding the right to a fair trial".

The report cited several cases to illustrate the arbitrary use of the death
penalty in Singapore, including a 24-year-old intellectually handicapped
labourer convicted of trying to sell a kilogram of cannabis.

Amnesty said extensive use of the death penalty on deterrent grounds in drug
cases had been proved a failure, with drug crimes and drug abuse growing.

A spokesman for Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs was unavailable for
comment.