Death penalty in Southeast Asia: Disturbing trends
Death penalty in Southeast Asia: Disturbing trends
WRITTEN BY SUSANNAH PATTON
19 October 2022
In July 2022, Myanmar’s junta executed four men, including two high-profile political prisoners: Phyo Zayar Thaw and Ko Jimmy. This was the first time the state had formally carried out the death penalty since the 1980s. The regional and global response was rightly one of outrage because as put by the newspaper Frontier Myanmar, the executions signalled a “new level of disregard for how [the junta] is perceived, both at home and abroad”. Cambodia (itself an abolitionist country) issued an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) chairman’s statement noting that ASEAN was “strongly disappointed”, viewing the executions as clear defiance of ASEAN’s pleas for de-escalation. Amnesty International estimates that the Myanmar junta has imposed 114 death sentences since February 2021.
Yet as abhorrent as the junta’s actions are, Myanmar is not the only country in Southeast Asia to have carried out the death penalty in 2022. Following a pause in the application of the death penalty during the COVID-19 pandemic, Singapore has resumed executions, killing ten people in 2022. UN experts have expressed concern about the discriminatory application of the death penalty, which has tended to be applied against ethnic minorities and those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Access to justice is also limited, with only around half of the ten prisoners executed in 2022 having access to legal representation, according to the Capital Punishment Justice Project. Despite this, Singapore has faced little international criticism, and its ministers staunchly defend the need to continuously impose the death penalty in relation to drug offences.
While Vietnam does not release information about its use of the death penalty, it likely executes more people than any other country in Southeast Asia. Amnesty International believes that executions in Vietnam have increased rapidly, with more than 1,000 prisoners currently under sentence of death. Because of its secrecy, Vietnam’s record receives little international scrutiny.
A mixed picture
Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, the picture of the death penalty is mixed. Thailand carried out a single execution in 2018 when it had been on the cusp of reaching the milestone of ten years without an execution. This would have made the country de facto abolitionist. It continues to impose the death penalty and Amnesty International estimates 158 people were known to be under sentence of death at the end of 2021. Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn regularly commutes death sentences.
The mixed picture for the death penalty in Southeast Asia, especially in countries where the death penalty is being actively debated, such as Malaysia, suggests that further advocacy by Australia and other like-minded countries would be timely.
Malaysia, which argued unsuccessfully at the highest levels for Singapore to show clemency to one of its nationals executed in 2022, has made some positive steps towards the elimination of the death penalty at home. In 2018, the newly-elected Pakatan Harapan government called for the death penalty to be abolished and imposed a moratorium on executions. The moratorium has been upheld over the past five years, despite turbulences in Malaysian politics. In June 2022, Malaysia announced it would abolish the mandatory death penalty and give judges discretion to consider mitigating circumstances, a move welcomed by UN experts.
While former Philippine President Duterte called for the death penalty to be reinstated into Philippine law, new President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has appeared more reluctant. He recently said in an interview that there was a moral question about the use of the death penalty, as well as an absence of evidence that it had a deterrent effect. This implies caution, though the issue remains topical in the Philippines, with Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla recently calling for a proper debate on the issue.
Indonesia’s last executions were in 2016, however, since then it has continued to impose the death penalty. According to monitoring by civil society groups, Indonesian courts imposed 296 death sentences in the five-year period from 2017 to 2022. Civil society groups have criticised this trend, arguing it is linked to a harsh approach to tackling drug offences and called for the Indonesian government to be more transparent in publishing official records on death penalty cases. Indonesia’s draft criminal code, though it has not been released publicly, is said to contain a compromise, reserving the death penalty as a ‘special penalty’ for serious offences and introducing a ten-year probation period for some offenders. Indonesia also accepted recommendations made during its 2017 Universal Periodic Review by the UN Human Rights Council to consider imposing a moratorium on the death penalty.
The case for international advocacy
In those countries that actively carry out executions, especially Singapore and Vietnam, the use of the death penalty is deeply connected to attitudes towards illicit drug use. Australian officials have previously made the case that retention of the death penalty (even in countries which are not currently carrying out executions, such as Malaysia) can make international cooperation to combat drugs more difficult because Australia cannot legally cooperate with countries on cases where the death penalty may apply. The mixed picture for the death penalty in Southeast Asia, especially in countries where the death penalty is being actively debated, such as Malaysia, suggests that further advocacy by Australia and other like-minded countries would be timely. Among international advocates, the European Union, as mandated by its guidelines, has the strongest voice in opposing the death penalty in Southeast Asia, including Singapore’s recent use. The European Union also provides funding for civil society opponents of the death penalty.
Australia’s new Labor government should publish a new whole-of-government death penalty strategy to update the 2018 strategy released by the previous government. Australia should continue to consistently and publicly oppose the use of the death penalty by any country, especially those in its own region, such as Singapore. Finally, civil society groups in almost every country in Southeast Asia play an important role in providing greater transparency about the use of the death penalty and advocating for its repeal. While the previous strategy noted that Australia would support civil society, no new funding or resourcing was allocated for this purpose. Providing meaningful support for civil society organisations’ research, advocacy and legal capabilities, and assisting them in developing regional and international linkages would be the key component of a stepped-up regional strategy to eliminate the death penalty.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Susannah Patton is the director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute. Image credit: Ezry Abdul Rahman via Wikimedia (image cropped).