IL PIU' ALTO TASSO AL MONDO GIUSTIZIATI SU NUMERO ABITANTI

SINGAPORE, 15 GEN - - Con 408 condannati a morte giustiziati tra il 1991 e il 2003, Singapore conquista il triste primato di essere la citta' con il piu' alto tasso di esecuzioni rispetto al numero di abitanti (4 milioni). E' quanto rende noto un rapporto di Amnesty Internazional.

''Si tratta di una cifra sconvolgente'', ha commentato Margaret John, coordinatrice della sezione regionale dell'organizzazione per la difesa dei diritti umani. Amnesty ha chiesto piu' volte a Singapore di abolire la pena di morte che viene comminata anche per il possesso di droga.

MSNBC News

SINGAPORE: Singapore has highest death penalty rate----Tiny island nation outstrips China, per capita

Singapore has the highest execution rate in the world relative to its population, outstripping China, Saudi Arabia and Sierra Leone, Amnesty International said in a report released Thursday.

More than 400 prisoners have been hanged since 1991 in the Southeast Asian city-state of 4 million people, the London-based rights organization said in a report on Singapore entitled "A Hidden Toll of Executions."

"It is the cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state in the name of justice, and violates one of the most fundamental of all human rights: the right to life," Amnesty said in a statement, describing the number of executions in Singapore as "shockingly high."

Most executions were for drug offenses while some were for murder and firearms offenses, all of which carry mandatory death sentences in Singapore, the report said.

Those executed overwhelmingly came from disadvantaged groups: migrant workers, drug addicts, the poor or the uneducated, Amnesty said. It cited the case of Rozman Jusoh, a 24-year-old Malaysian laborer who was hanged for drug trafficking in 1996, despite having below normal intelligence with a reported IQ of 74.

The government says it needs the death penalty to deter drug addiction and violent crime.

"By protecting Singaporeans from drugs, we are protecting their human rights," said Inderjit Singh, a member of parliament, responding to the report.

"The rule breakers have to be dealt with - it�s the same in any part of the world," said Singh, who is also president of a chip-making company. "We just do it differently."

Singapore drug laws are among the world�s toughest. Anyone caught with more than half an ounce of heroin or more than 17 ounces of marijuana is presumed to be trafficking and faces a mandatory death sentence.

Singapore had the highest per capita execution rate between 1994 and 1999, with about 13.6 executions for every million people, according to the latest U.N. report on capital punishment.

That figure is more than 6 times the rate for China, which had the largest overall number of executions. Singapore�s rate was nearly 3 times that of Saudi Arabia and more than 4 times that of Sierra Leone.

Since 1991, there have been about 747 executions in the United States, a nation of about 290 million people, according to Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center.

Amnesty charged that Singapore denied defendants the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty by writing laws ordering that they be presumed guilty of trafficking based on the amount of drugs found.

The group also accused the government of veiling its use of the death penalty by failing to regularly publish statistics about death sentences or executions. The number of prisoners currently on Singapore�s death row is not known, it added.

Only the rare occasions when the government responds to a parliamentary question on the issue provide glimpses into the tally of executions, the report said.

However, the government says the process leading to executions is public.

"All trials involving capital cases are tried in an open court," home affairs ministry spokesman Goh Kiat Teng said. "All judicial decisions involving the death penalty are open to public scrutiny."

  By Jason Szep

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore 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 Thursday.

Executions were "shockingly high" and "shrouded in secrecy" in Singapore, Amnesty said, calling on the government to abolish the death penalty 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 percent from 2001. Use of methamphetamines, or "ice," also showed a significant increase.

"We are also calling on the authorities to end the secrecy about the use of the death penalty and encourage public debate," 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, Saudi Arabia, it said.

The Prisons Department said 400 executions since 1991 was a "fair estimation."

AGAINST THE GLOBAL TREND

The public generally supports Singapore's tough laws -- including the death penalty, bans on pornography and curbs on political dissent -- as part of a social contract that in return has delivered years of economic prosperity.

But calls are growing for greater freedoms.

Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, likely to take power this year, said this month he would continue to loosen Singapore's stiffer social controls though he said he was constrained by the conservative majority in the island's polyglot community of ethnic Chinese, Malays and Indians.

So far, the steps to loosen up have been small. Last year, the government ended a 13-year ban on chewing gum but only for medical use. Bungee-jumping and bar-top dancing were recently allowed and laws criminalizing oral sex are under review.

Singapore does not normally publish statistics about death sentences or give the number of prisoners sentenced to die, but Amnesty painted a grim picture of death row, based on accounts from relatives of those who spent time there.

"Cells are sparse, furnished only with a toilet and a mat but no bedding. Inmates are allowed the use of a bucket for washing. It is believed they are not allowed to go outside for fresh air or exercise," it said,

Amnesty added that Singapore was going against a global trend toward abolishing the death penalty, noting that three countries a year in the past decade have ended their execution laws, including Angola, Mauritius, Canada and Cyprus

Executions on the rise in Asia, the death penalty capital of the world

SINGAPORE - The noose snaps and another body collapses in Singapore's Changi prison gallows at dawn on a Friday, while nearby elderly men and women dance the rythmic rituals of tai-chi in perfectly neat parks.

Elsewhere in what is regarded as the safest nation in Asia, the younger generations are readying for work and school, while newspapers reporting virtually no local crime wait to be bought at fastidiously clean news-stands.

Dawn on Friday is execution time in Singapore, the nation that human rights group Amnesty International says has the highest death penalty rate per capita in the world.

According to Amnesty, 408 people have been hanged to death here since 1991, with authorities, who keep a tight grip on the local media, ensuring there is little public debate about its controversial system of capital punishment.

And just as many Asian nations aspire to emulate Singapore's economic success, it appears they are also increasingly following the city-state's zero-tolerance approach to crime and robustly embracing the death penalty.

Across many parts of Asia, capital punishment is on the rise, with China, Vietnam, Bangladesh and most recently the Philippines just some of the countries making international headlines with their enthusiastic attitude towards the death penalty.

"While in other regions around the world governments move away from the death penalty, we are seeing in Asia quite a substantial increase in the use of the death penalty," Amnesty's Asia program interim director, Ingrid Massage, told AFP.

Massage cited higher crime rates and increasing security fears generated by the global war on terrorism as factors in the worsening trend.

Although Singapore has the highest rate of executions per capita, China is the clear leader in sheer number of people put to death, with the government's "strike-hard campaign" against corruption throwing renewed focus on capital punishment.

Chinese authorities ensure the total numbers executed each year remain secret. Yet Amnesty said it had been able to determine 1,060 executions in China in 2002, and 2,468 the year before, with the actual number believed to be far higher.

In one particular death frenzy, Amnesty said at least 150 accused drug criminals were executed across China in June 2002 to mark the United Nations (news - web sites)' International Drugs Day.

"China stands out completely on its own. By all standards it goes off the scale," Massage said.

In Vietnam, the use of the death penalty is also on the rise, while tolerance for campaigning against the punishment is falling.

As in China, the official number of executions is a tightly held state secret, but AFP reported last month that at least 62 people were put to death by firing squad last year, mainly for murder and drug trafficking.

The death toll, based on information compiled by AFP from officials and state media reports, was double the number in 2002, and government statements indicate it is in no mood to adopt a lighter approach.

"Once drug-related crimes are eradicated, we might consider changing our policy with lesser crimes," public security deputy minister Le The Tiem said in September last year.

With increasing international public scrutiny, Massage said Vietnamese authorities this month had indicated they would stop giving out any information at all on death sentences and executions.

The Philippines joined its more authoritarian regional neighbours on the issue last month when President Gloria Arroyo announced that a near four-year moratorium on capital punishment would be lifted on January 30 with the scheduled execution of two kidnappers.

Arroyo, a devout Catholic, made the decision in a bid to stem rampant crime a month after the body of a kidnapped Chinese-Filipino Coca-Cola executive was found stuffed in a rubbish bag.

The Philippines is closely following the path of Japan, where 43 people have been executed since a moratorium on capital punishment was lifted in 1993.

Likewise in Indonesia, pressure is mounting to scale up the use of the death penalty, with anti-terrorism laws passed in the wake of the Bali bombings in October 2002 incorporating capital punishment.

Although executions are rare in Indonesia -- the last took place in May 2001 and there were none for six years before then -- three Bali bombers have been sentenced to death and the government has made a series of statements in favour of capital punishment, particularly for drug trafficking.

Bangladesh, recognised as one of the world's most corrupt nations, has also recently stepped up its use of the death penalty, with two men hanged in July last year in the first executions for more than two years.

The government established "speedy" courts in 2002 in which cases have to be dealt with in three months in a bid to clear the massive backlog in its court system, resulting in a rapid rise in the number of death sentences.

Sixteen people were sentenced to death in a single day in November last year, bringing the reported total of inmates on death row in the country to about 340.

Elsewhere in South Asia, Delhi-based rights group South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre said at least 100 people were sentenced to death each year in India, although only "three or four" executions were carried out annually.

But again the trend appears to be towards a greater acceptance of capital punishment, with the Indian government recently introducing a parliamentary bill that would allow fake drug producers to be sentenced to death.

A further six people were executed in neighbouring Pakistan last year and 403 people sentenced to death, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Thailand is another country to use the death penalty regularly, although the issue is not as shrouded in secrecy as elsewhere.

Government figures show 323 prisoners were executed by firing squad in Thailand from 1935 until last year, when the method of killing was changed to lethal injection.

Four people have since been executed by lethal injection. The Thai corrections department said 68 convicts were on death row, with 806 others appealing their death sentences.

There are only a few nations in Asia that do not implement the death penalty, and even in most of those it still remains legal.

Afghanistan , which was home to some of the most primitive forms of capital punishment during the Taliban's reign, is one such example.

Under Afghanistan's Islamic sharia law, the relatives of a murder victim have the final say on whether the offender is put to death, but President Hamid Karzai has personally ensured no-one has been executed since coming to power in 2002.

"President Karzai in all these cases has spoken to the families and managed to make them agree to forgive the murderer," deputy chief justice of the Supreme Court Fazel Ahmad Manawi told AFP.

South Korea also allows the death penalty with justice ministry figures showing 231 people were executed between 1976 and 1997.

However, Seoul imposed an unofficial moratorium on executions in December 1997 when Kim Dae-Jung, once sentenced to death himself during his days as a dissident, was elected president.