In April 2015, Mary Jane Veloso was moved to Nusa Kambangan, a maximum security prison island in Indonesia. The plan had been to execute her by firing squad with other death row prisoners, including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. Veloso was spared at the eleventh hour. Almost a decade later, it looks like she will not only live, but also go home to the Philippines.
Indonesia and the Philippines have signed an agreement for Veloso to serve the remainder of her sentence in the Philippines, where there is no death penalty. It is hoped that she will be home by Christmas. Such is the reality of capital punishment: the state that resolved to kill you could just as easily agree to give you a lifeline.
Asia continues to be a hotspot for the death penalty. There’s China and North Korea, famously opaque about executions yet widely assumed to be among the world’s most prolific executioners. The Myanmar military resumed executions after its 2021 coup. And although a recent constitutional court ruling said that the death penalty could only be used for the most serious offences after a rigorous legal process, Taiwanese abolitionists were disappointed not to have got rid of capital punishment entirely.
Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore have embraced the death penalty for years as a key tenet of the war on drugs.
Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore have embraced the death penalty for years as a key tenet of the war on drugs. The former has become a beacon of hope: after abolishing the mandatory death penalty last year, more than 800 death sentences have been commuted to imprisonment in Malaysia. It’s a positive development, encouraging Malaysian abolitionists to work towards the end of capital punishment altogether.
The news of Veloso’s transfer – as well as Indonesia’s apparent willingness to repatriate members of the Bali Nine – lends itself to cautious optimism. “I think it provides a strong signal that the Indonesian government wants to reduce the death penalty, both for Indonesian nationals and foreigners,” says Albert Wirya from the Community Legal Aid Institute (LBHM). “There is a hope that what happened to Mary Jane Veloso can also be applied to other foreigners who are on death row, regardless of their embassies’ lobby.”
In Singapore there are, unfortunately, no signs of the government distancing itself from the death penalty. Nine men have been hanged in the city-state this year so far – all but one for drug offences. This makes a total of 25 death sentences carried out since Singapore resumed executions in 2022 after a two-year pause.
K Shanmugam, minister for both home affairs and law, is a staunch defender of the death penalty. “In this war, we will have to decide: do we want to go soft, and risk ending up like the countries I have spoken about earlier? Do we want to become a ‘narco-state’, or an ‘infamous brown town’, or a hotbed for drugs and violence?” he said in a ministerial statement in parliament in May; a speech in which he painted disturbing pictures of countries such as the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States struggling with the effects of drug use without the benefit of Singapore’s “zero tolerance” policy.
This embrace of capital punishment hasn’t just manifested in hangings, but also in legislative changes and diplomatic efforts. In recent years, the government, the public prosecution and the courts have all accused death row prisoners of “abusing court process” by filing applications, later found to be groundless by the courts, “to stymie their scheduled execution”. The Post-appeal Applications in Capital Cases Act, which came into effect in June, further raises the bar for death row prisoners to file legal applications after their initial criminal appeals have failed. In November, amendments were passed in parliament stating that filing unmeritorious applications and using the legal process for “an ulterior or improper purpose” is in contempt of court. The government argued that something had to be done about “lawfare”, where legal proceedings are weaponised to intimidate, harass or bully an opponent. It was quite clear that applications filed by prisoners desperate to avoid death were also seen as “lawfare” – as if it’s possible for a person on death row to harass or oppress the state.
It’s not the first time Indonesia has made seemingly progressive moves without committing to full abolition.
This month, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will once again vote on a resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty. In a vote on the draft resolution last month, 131 member states (including Malaysia) voted in favour of the moratorium, while 21 (including Indonesia) abstained. Singapore was among 36 member states that voted “No”. Singapore also put forward an amendment asserting “the sovereign right of all countries to develop their own legal systems, including determining appropriate legal penalties”.
Constant vigilance is required when it comes to the death penalty. As Albert Wirya points out, Indonesia’s hopeful developments are a long way from shaking the government’s belief in the war on drugs. Even in the middle of negotiations in Veloso’s case, Indonesian government officials were talking about executions as part of a tough stance against drugs.
It’s also a political game. Albert Wirya suspects that Indonesia abstains from voting on the UNGA resolution so as to remain as palatable as possible. “[The Indonesian government] wants to always appear neutral so that they can use that as leverage to the international community about the possibility that Indonesia might ‘turn’ at some point,” he says. It’s not the first time Indonesia has made seemingly progressive moves without committing to full abolition. “The legislators claim it as an ‘Indonesian’ way of dealing with the death penalty, saying that they stay in the middle between abolitionists and retentionists. In my view, this ambiguity made it easier for the government to build a diplomatic relationship with countries that oppose the death penalty.”
