On Friday, the Singapore court of appeals rejected a constitutional appeal that challenged the island-state's mandatory death penalty for drugs.The case was brought by a young messenger named Yong Vui Kong who was arrested for carrying 47 grams of heroin into Singapore when he was just 19 years old. Though he claims to have been ignorant of the contents of the package that he was hired to deliver from Malaysia, the decision makes it probable that he will die for his "crime".
On its own, this case is cause for despair. The state-sanctioned killing of a poor, vulnerable young man should attract outrage from all quarters. However, the decision is also disheartening to abolitionists of capital punishment who had started to believe there was a progressive moderation occurring in Singapore's application of the death penalty. Full Story
