Politics Van Nguyen

What are peoples opinion on this? For those who arent aware, Van Nguyen was caught in Singapore with enough heroin for 26,000 people (according to media sources). The reason he was trafficking?? To pay off his twin brothers legal debt from when said brother was caught with drugs.
He is to be executed by hanging on Friday morning 2 December 2005.

Australian media are trying to play down his actions and turn it into an emotional tragedy, with people from the government down trying to stay his execution.

Me personally, i think he deserves to be punished, maybe not by death. However, that is the law in many Asian countries, which people are well aware off (apparently you are told on the plane flight the consequences). Apparently Singapore has a very low crime rate because of their total zero tolerance for major crimes.

Thoughts??
 
It's a shame that he supposedly was trying to do a good thing, but he acted very stupidly. It is extremely well known that if you are traveling in Singapore that drug trafficking is punishable by death. There are warnings all over the place, and that is a ton of heroin.

It's awful that he's going to have to die for this stupid mistake, but he knew what he was doing and he knew the consequences.
 
Australia blasts drug execution

SYDNEY, Australia -- Singapore apparently hanged young Australian drug smuggler Tuong Van Nguyen at 6 a.m. Friday (2200 GMT Thursday), despite widespread condemnation in Australia.

Church bells tolled in Nguyen's home city of Melbourne at 9 a.m. Friday, the scheduled time of his execution. Vigils were held in other Australian cities.

On Thursday, the Australian government had dropped diplomacy and called Singapore's plan to hang Van Nguyen "barbaric."

There was no offficial announcement of Nguyen's hanging. Australian television reporters on the scene at Changi jail said they expected Nguyen's distraught family would be formally advised during the day.

Nguyen was the first Australian executed overseas for 12 years.

Australia had repeatedly sought clemency for Nguyen, 25, who was convicted of smuggling 400 grams (0.9 lb) of heroin from Cambodia through Singapore's Changi airport in 2002.

Nguyen's mother, Kim Nguyen, was able to hold hands and touch her son's face during her last visit to see him on Thursday.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock criticized the imposition of the death penalty, especially in Nguyen's case which he said had mitigating circumstances -- Nguyen said he smuggled the drugs to try and pay off loan-shark debts for his brother in Australia.

"It was a mandatory death sentence. We feel most remorseful this is going to happen," Ruddock told Australian television ahead of the apparent execution.

"It's a most unfortunate, barbaric act that is occurring."

In 1986, then-prime minister Bob Hawke caused a huge rift with Malaysia that lasted a decade when he called the hanging that year of two Australian drug smugglers "barbaric."

Singapore is one of Australia's strongest allies in Asia and Australian Prime Minister John Howard has rejected calls for trade and military boycotts over the execution.

Howard did, however, make five personal pleas to Singapore and his foreign and justice ministers also called for clemency. But the city-state stood firm, saying it would not allow Singapore to be used as a transit for illicit drugs.

Many Australians held candle-lit vigils for Nguyen on the eve of his execution,

But a survey showed Australia was divided over the punishment..

A survey by Morgan Poll conducted on Wednesday night showed 47 percent of Australians believed Nguyen should be executed, 46 percent said the death penalty should not be carried out, and seven percent were undecided.

Australia abolished the death penalty decades ago. The last man hanged in Australia was convicted murderer Ronald Ryan who was hanged in a Melbourne prison in 1967.

Ready to die

On Thursday, Nguyen's lawyer, Lex Lasry, told Australian television from Singapore that Nguyen was "ready to die".

"He's in very good shape emotionally, physically, spiritually, and his courage and his fortitude through all this, particularly in the last few weeks, makes our role much easier," said Lasry.

"He has little concern for himself. He has a great insight into his situation and he is, in fact, ready to die," he said.

Some 420 people have been hanged in Singapore since 1991, mostly for drug trafficking, an Amnesty International 2004 report said. That gives the country of 4.4 million people the highest execution rate in the world relative to population.

Opponents of the death penalty say support for capital punishment is weakening around the world. But at least 3,797 people were executed in 2004, according to Amnesty figures, which the group says is the second-highest number recorded since it started monitoring executions 25 years ago.
 
actually you may be suprised by the number of people in australia who didnt support him, and the outrage that was caused by people holding a minutes silence for him. you may or may not know, but a minutes silence is usually held for our war veterans the ANZACS
 
Me personally, i think he deserves to be punished, maybe not by death. However, that is the law in many Asian countries, which people are well aware off (apparently you are told on the plane flight the consequences). Apparently Singapore has a very low crime rate because of their total zero tolerance for major crimes.
^ I agree with that... yes, the death penalty is harsh, but he should be punished... and well, if the punishment for the crime is the death penalty, then so be it...
 
he shouldn't have done it. i do think the punishment is harsh, but he should have known the punishment for the crime before he even went there. but i guess it is a warning for all of the other people who decide to do the same stupid thing.
personally, i fell sorry for his mother, family and friends, and what they have had to go through
 
It wasn't smart. I mean he was trying to pay off his brother's heroin debt by smuggling heroin. You know what the consequences are when you visit those countries.
 
Poeple who kill somone's innocent kid get out in ten years and somebody helping his brother gets the death penalty. This is a sick, sad world.
I'm not justifying his actions - drugs are bad of course, I'm just saying sometimes "an eye for an eye" is more fair than legal punishment.
 
What are peoples opinion on this? For those who arent aware, Van Nguyen was caught in Singapore with enough heroin for 26,000 people (according to media sources). The reason he was trafficking?? To pay off his twin brothers legal debt from when said brother was caught with drugs.
He is to be executed by hanging on Friday morning 2 December 2005.

Australian media are trying to play down his actions and turn it into an emotional tragedy, with people from the government down trying to stay his execution.

Me personally, i think he deserves to be punished, maybe not by death. However, that is the law in many Asian countries, which people are well aware off (apparently you are told on the plane flight the consequences). Apparently Singapore has a very low crime rate because of their total zero tolerance for major crimes.

Thoughts??

I totally agree with you he had enough sense no know that if you go to Malaysia or Singapore you will get a very harsh sentence for drug trafficing....

but i believe he got what's coming.... and his mum and brother were also pushers ... then mum in springvale!!!!

And i just heard that he is having a huge mass in St Patricks Catherdral which is like the biggest chruch in melbourne.... but i don't thinlk that all this pubplicotyu is needed.... it's stupid!!!!!

Rea
 
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