The following is the written version of the speech I gave at the event ‘The Politics of the Death Penalty for Drug Offences: Towards Abolition’, co-hosted by the Open Society Foundation and Harm Reduction International in Berlin on 16 November 2022.

Abdul Kahar bin Othman. He was 68 years old and spent the bulk of his life shuttling in and out of prison. His brother said that, when he was released after a long sentence, he looked like a lost child in a city that had rapidly developed without him.

Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam. In the last week of his life, he met his nephews and niece for the first time. Despite the pleasure of finally seeing them, it had been so many years since he’d last seen children, his senses were a little overwhelmed by their loud chattering.

Kalwant Singh. He called his niece Kellvina “Baby Girl”, because he’d raised her in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia, even when he was just a teenager himself. “Isn’t he handsome?” his sister asked us repeatedly when we stood over his casket. He was.

Norasharee bin Gous. Hundreds of people turned up for his funeral, so many that not everyone could enter the mosque. A friend told me that many of them would have done anything for him, because he had taken care of them.

Nazeri bin Lajim. He was a soft-spoken, sensitive soul, whose favourite song was Sweet Child Of Mine by Guns N Roses. His drug use began from a young age, and even predates Singapore’s death penalty for drug offences. If he could have been released from prison, he would have remarried his ex-wife, who remained his most regular visitor until his execution.

Abdul Rahim bin Shapiee. The afternoon before his scheduled hanging, he participated in a joint hearing with 23 other death row prisoners, suing the state for breaching their right to access to justice. The hearing was held on Zoom, and when the court stood down for the judges to deliberate, he got to see and joke with his buddies on death row in the virtual room. It was a rare chance for them, because death row prisoners spend most of their time in single cells. After keeping everyone waiting for seven hours, the judges dismissed the case and Rahim was hanged hours later. Because of that wait, he lost precious visitation time with his family and missed his last meal.

These are some of the men hanged in Singapore this year for non-violent drug offences. There are others whose names I can’t mention, because we don’t have consent from their families to make their cases public. In total, 11 men were executed by the state from March to October this year.

I begin with them today because this is where our struggle against the death penalty for drugs should begin, always.

The death penalty is a system that forces us to forget our humanity. It pushes us to think of other human beings as undesirable and disposable.

The Singapore Prison Service keeps death row prisoners in situations of severe isolation. Access to them is generally limited to immediate family members and lawyers—journalists and activists aren’t allowed to visit them, even if they consent to or desire such visits. Their correspondence is strictly surveilled. They are only allowed one visit, about an hour long, every week.

They are rendered voiceless even though they are the ones whose lives are on the line.

Because they are so often nameless and faceless, it is easy for everyone else to treat the death penalty as an abstract, theoretical debate. It is easy for members of the public to write them off as merely “drug traffickers” and “criminals”. It is easy to accept their executions when their existence has been erased long before they are taken to the gallows.

As activists and abolitionists, a key part of our work is to push back against this dehumanisation. In support of and in solidarity with the loved ones of death row prisoners, we bring their names, their faces, and their messages to the people. We remind people that everyone is more than their mistakes, more than their regrets.

We need to reduce the psychological distance. We have to remind everyone that the death penalty is not an academic question. It is a cold, harsh reality with the highest stakes.

Those who seek to kill resent this work that we do. They hate that we tell the stories of people on death row, showing up the capital punishment system for what it really is: a cruelty disproportionately enacted upon the vulnerable and the marginalised.

By their own admission, the real drivers of the global illicit drug trade—the drug lords who exploit and move product with impunity—aren’t the ones being arrested and punished in Singapore. Yet they hate how we highlight this truth with the stories we tell. They would prefer to hide the data and shroud the death penalty regime in secrecy and silence.

When they choose opacity over transparency, they are hiding their shame. They hide the fact that the majority of death row prisoners are ethnic minorities—a skew so blatant that just reading out the names of people on death row, as we did in April this year, makes it clear for all to see. When they bind all the prison officers and counsellors to silence with the Official Secrets Act, they seek to hide the pain and trauma that is inflicted in Changi Prison and ripples outwards, all in the name of a supposed deterrent effect unsubstantiated by evidence.

The death penalty is an extraordinary injustice that only works when people can be persuaded to turn away, avert their gaze, and accept state violence. We must make them turn back, pay attention, and recognise the inhumanity. Only then can we make people think. Only then can we begin to change their minds. Only then can we remind them of the compassion in their hearts.

I end where I begin. I ask you to remember these names that those in power would like us to forget.

Abdul Kahar bin Othman. Executed 30 March, 2022.

Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam. Executed 27 April, 2022.

Kalwant Singh. Executed 7 July, 2022.

Norasharee bin Gous. Executed 7 July, 2022.

Nazeri bin Lajim. Executed 22 July, 2022.

Abdul Rahim bin Shapiee. Executed 5 August, 2022.

May our memory of them fuel the fight to prevent other names from being added to this list.