Human rights groups on Tuesday applauded Malaysia’s move to scrap the mandatory death penalty as a major step forward in the push for the abolition of capital punishment in Southeast Asia.
Instead of the death penalty, lawmakers on Monday approved bills to give courts the option of imposing prison sentences of between 30 and 40 years and caning not fewer than 12 times. Previously, courts had no choice but to mandate hanging as punishment for a range of crimes, including murder, drug trafficking, treason, kidnapping, and acts of terror.
Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch said Malaysia’s progressive stance could help “break the logjam on forward movement towards abolition of the death penalty” in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
“Far too many ASEAN states like to brandish the death penalty as some sort of big stick to scare criminals, but that tactic is not really working.” “Singapore has gone on an execution spree, Vietnam puts dozens to death every year, and even Myanmar is now executing political prisoners, but crime has hardly diminished,” he said.
“Hopefully, the Malaysia move will signal a step back from the death penalty that will be picked up by other states like Thailand, Laos, Brunei, and elsewhere that have not put people to death for some time,” he said.
Cambodia and the Philippines are the only two countries in the region that abolished the death penalty, although there were calls to revive it in Manila.
Myanmar has had a de facto moratorium on the death penalty since 1989, but the country’s military rulers executed four political prisoners last year. Singapore resumed executions by hanging 11 people last year after a hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Singapore has come under fire for executions of what critics said were low-level drug smugglers, but the government has defended the use of the death penalty as a deterrent. Officials said Singapore had arrested about 6,000 people a year for illegal drugs in the 1990s, but the number has now dropped to about 3,000 people a year.
Reports said three studies conducted or commissioned by the government showed that more than seven in 10 people in the city-state supported the death penalty for the most serious crimes, such as intentional murder, the use of firearms, and drug trafficking.
