Stop the execution of Yong Vui Kong

10 December 2009, 10:40AM

In an unprecedented development, Yong Vui Kong received a second stay of execution by the Court of Appeal in Singapore on 8 December, enabling his appeal to be heard.

Without the campaigning of people like you, the stay would not have been granted. We need to keep up the international pressure for Yong Vui Kong.

Yong Vui Kong was arrested in June 2007 at the age of 19 and was charged with trafficking 42.27 grams of heroin. He was sentenced to death in January 2009 and petitioned for clemency from the President of Singapore but this petition was rejected on 1 December.

Singapore has a mandatory death sentence for drug-trafficking. This means that the court that sentenced him had no option but to sentence Yong Vui Kong to death. His lawyers are appealing on the grounds that this is unconstitutional and his case should therefore be referred back to the trial judge for "reconsideration".

However, if his appeal is unsuccessful, he may be executed.

Only the President of Singapore has the power to commute his death sentence.

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Read more

Second stay of execution for Yong Vui Kong - watch the interview with his lawyer

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I am urging you to reconsider Yong Vui Kong's clemency petition and commute his death sentence. The death penalty is mandatory for drug-trafficking offences. As a result, the court that sentenced Yong Vui Kong to death had no discretion to sentence him to an alternative punishment. This is not a fair trial. Today, 139 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. I am calling on you to introduce a moratorium on executions, with a view to complete abolition of the death penalty, and make Singapore the 140th country to abolish the death penalty.

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