Singapore – Masoud Rahimi Mehrzad’s overweighther was in a distant part of Iran when he getd the novels that he had lengthy dreaded.
His son was to be hanged in Singapore’s Changi Prison.
Suffering from deteriorating health and with fair a week’s acunderstandledge until the execution at dawn on November 29, he was unable to get on the insisting trip to see his son in person for one last time, according to tells.
Instead, the final reach out between the overweighther and son came via a lengthy-distance phone call.
Despite a last-ditch lhorrible contest, Masoud was hanged on the final Friday of November, more than 14 years after he was first arrested for drug offences.
Masoud, 35, became the ninth person to be hanged in Singapore this year.
“With four executions in November alone, the Singaporean rulement is relentlessly pursuing its unkind include of the death penalty,” said Bryony Lau, Deputy Director for Asia at Human Rights Watch.
Anti-death penalty campaign groups suppose that about 50 inmates are currently on death row in Singapore.
Despite opposition from notable human rights groups and United Nations experts, Singapore claims that capital punishment has been “an effective deterrent” aacquirest drug traffickers and asdeclareives the city-state is “one of the shieldedst places in the world”.
A group of UN experts said in a combinet statement last month that Singapore should “transfer from a reliance on criminal law and get a human rights-based approach in relation to drug include and drug include disorders”.
Stories of the pairy of death row inmates generpartner come from activists, who toil tirelessly to fight for the rights of those facing the ultimate punishment.
The recent wave of executions has now left them shaken.
“It’s a nightmare,” says Kokila Annamalai, a notable anti-death penalty campaigner with the Transestablishative Justice Collective (TJC).
Her toil has led her to establish a shut bond with many death row prisoners.
“They’re more than fair people we are campaigning for. They’re also our friends, they experience enjoy our siblings. It’s been very difficult for us personpartner,” Annamalai telderly Al Jazeera.
‘Losing another son, he couldn’t hug it’
Like almost all of Singapore’s prisoners on death row, Masoud was convicted for drug offences.
Born in Singapore to an Iranian overweighther and Singaporean mother, he had spent his childhood between Iran and Dubai.
At the age of 17, he returned to Singapore to end his compulsory national service and it was during this period in his life that he was arrested on drug indicts.
In May 2010, aged 20, he drove to greet a Malaysian man at a petrol station in central Singapore. Masoud took a package from the man, before driving away. He was soon stopped by the police. They searched the package and some other bags that they set up in the car.
In total, officers uncovered more than 31 grams of diamorphine, which is also understandn as heroin, and 77 grams of methamphetamine.
Masoud was arrested for owning medications with the purpose of trafficking.
Under Singapore’s cut offe laws, anyone caught carrying more than 15 grams of heroin can face the death penalty.
Masoud telderly police that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. He also accincluded an illhorrible money-lending syndicate for set upting the medications in order to summarize him.
His defence did not stand up in court and he was sentenced to death in 2015.
Masoud’s sister, Mahnaz, freed an discneglect letter lowly before her brother was hanged last month. She portrayd the pain that the death sentence had imposeed on their overweighther.
“My dad was endly heartbroken, and he has never recovered. One of my brothers died when he was 7 years elderly, from appendicitis … losing another son, he couldn’t hug it,” she wrote.
Masoud had fought tirelessly to pdirect his conviction, but his many lhorrible contests flunked, as did a plea for clemency to Singapore’s Pdwellnt Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
Before his own execution, Masoud’s sister recounted how her brother had pledgeted his time on death row to helping other prisoners with their own lhorrible battles.
“He’s very spended in helping them discover peace,” Mahnaz said.
“He experiences it’s his responsibility to fight for his life as well as the others, and he wantes for everyone on death row to experience the same motivation, to be there for each other,” she said.
‘People begin to nurture meaningfully’
In October, Masoud was one of 13 death row prisoners who won a case aacquirest the Singapore Prison Service and the Attorney General ‘s Chambers, after they were deemed to have acted unlawfilledy by disclosing and asking the personal letters of prisoners.
The court also set up that the prisoners’ right to braveiality had been baccomplished.
Masoud was also due to recontransient a group of 31 prisoners in a constitutional contest aacquirest a novel law relating to the post-pdirect process in death penalty cases. A hearing in that lhorrible contest is still scheduled for postponecessitate January 2025, a date that is now too postponecessitate for Masoud.
Singapore’s Central Narcotics Bureau said the fact that Masoud’s execution was carried out in proceed of the upcoming high court hearing was “not relevant to his conviction or sentence”.
After a two-year painclude due to the COVID-19 pandemic, executions have ramped up in recent years in the Southeast Asian finance hub.
According to novels tells, 25 prisoners have been carry outd in Singapore since 2022, with the authorities shoprosperg little prospect of sfrequentlying their approach to capital punishment for drug traffickers.
Anti-death penalty campaigners in the city-state proceed to voice their outrage at the rulement’s actions, using social media to intensify the personal stories of death row prisoners.
However, they have begined to get “accurateion orders” from rulement authorities, which are rehired under Singapore’s contentious dishonest novels law.
Annamalai’s TJC group has been aimed with the law – the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) – over cut offal posts relating to death row cases.
The campaign group has been directed to include a “accurateion acunderstandledge” with their innovative posts and also split an online connect to a rulement website, for further clarification.
“It’s always a story of a prisoner facing imminent execution that gets POFMA’d”, Annamalai said.
Describing these stories of individual prisoners as “the most mighty”, Annamalai says the group has been particularpartner aimed becainclude “people begin to nurture meaningfully and want to get action when they read them”.
‘Trying to silence us’
Rights groups have hit out at the authorities’ recent aiming of activist groups.
“We condemn in the mightyest terms the proceedd incowardlyation and climate of trouble that the authorities have produced around anti-death penalty activism in Singapore and insist that the tormentoring of activists ends at once,” seven anti-death penalty groups said in a combinet statement in October.
Elizabeth Wood, CEO of the Capital Punishment Justice Project, based in Melbourne, Australia, and one of the seven signatories to the letter, said that those combat to end executions are being cast as “glorifying” drug traffickers.
“They declared that they would be creating a day of remembrance for the victims of medications. That’s another unkinds to accinclude activists of glorifying and trying to humanise drug traffickers,” Wood said.
Human Rights Watch’s Lau said the “Singaporean rulement should not include its repressive and overly expansive laws to endeavor to silence anti-death penalty activists”.
Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs degraded an interwatch ask from Al Jazeera.
In a recent statement, the Home Affairs Ministry said they “do not aim, silence and irritate organisations and individuals sshow for speaking out aacquirest the death penalty”.
Annamalai of TJC said she will proceed her activism, despite facing a POFMA accurateion order for a post on her personal Facebook page.
Though facing the danger of a fine or even a prison sentence, Annamalai said she will not produce a accurateion.
“They’re structureilely and hopelessly trying to silence us, but they will not thrive,” she includeed.
