Singapore’s government hangs Omar Yacob Bamadhaj for transporting 1 kilogram of cannabis

The Visiting Singapore website lists the “10 Amazing Things You Never Knew About Singapore”! On that list, you’ll find things like 64 islands, a night zoo, and pioneering the first Formula 1 night race.

All exciting things!

Another amazing thing you might not know about Singapore is that they have one of the strictest drug laws in the world. In fact, it’s one of the top five worst places to be arrested for drugs.

This was illustrated by a news story circulating on the Internet some time ago in which a Singapore man lost his death sentence for hauling 1 kilogram of weed. That’s right, in Singapore you will be killed and hanged for transporting weed.

Since 2000, the Singapore government has murdered 105 people for drug offenses, including five foreigners. However, from 1991 to 1999, they killed 256 people for drug offenses. At least we have seen a significant decrease in the past twenty years.

While this may be shocking to some of you reading this article, Singaporeans are not against it. Support for the death penalty was 95% in 2005, down to around 80% in 2020. That is still a very large majority in favor of this antiquated practice that the Singaporeans adopted from their British invaders.

Needless to say, in a world that is rapidly moving towards a cannabis-friendly environment, it will be interesting to see how these extreme countries will respond to change.

The future obituary of Omar Yacob Bamadhaj

On October 12, 2021, Singaporean courts issued a death sentence on the life of Omar Yacob Bamadhaj. Was Omar a murderer, a depraved rapist, or some combination of vicious traits? No – he was caught with 1,000 grams of plant matter that happened to get you high.

According to Omar, he was out shopping with his father in Malaysia when two people put the packages in his car – without knowing him. The police painted another picture where Omar knew the packages contained cannabis.

The truth is we’ll never know – because Omar changed his story once or twice and the police have no incentive to tell the truth. But even if Omar was telling the truth, it wouldn’t matter much.

The Singaporean government believes that transporting plant material over imaginary lines is a livable crime. Without much thought, the appeals court dismissed Omar’s appeal, stating that they believed the trial judge had properly examined the case.

A few strokes of the pen later, Omar was sentenced to hang by the neck until all the oxygen from his brain was depleted, the blood flow through the rope cut off as the weight of his body dragged his soul into the afterlife.

80% of Singaporeans agreed to this action – I’m sure his father was among the 20% who disagreed.

Is Singapore safer now that Omar is no longer with us? Did you stop the flow of drugs? Maybe “Xavier”, your dystopian patrol robot, can give us his insights. If it weren’t too busy giving warnings to people showing undesirable social behavior.

Rest in peace Omar, even if your life ends this year – know that your story has at least touched the minds of people outside Singapore. It got the world talking – and overwhelmingly the world thought that what the government did to you was “backward and barbaric”.

What the world said about Omar’s death …

This story got published in several major media outlets and when I saw it I thought it was important to spread it. I believe in a world where individual rights are sacred, and in some situations we must grant some of those rights – that as a global society we should strive to maintain as much individual freedom as possible.

The story even made it onto Reddit in the Official Singapore Subreddit.

The “Hurt_Cow” said this;

This type of hyper-defense prevents real change from taking place. Are many of the West’s ideas about Singapore exaggerated and untrue? Naturally.

That doesn’t change the fact that this is an absurd and unjust crime, weed is not a hard drug. Weed addicts do not rob businesses, attack people, or kill those who try to withdraw from them. It’s not 100% safe, but its harm is much closer to that of legal drugs like alcohol and cigarettes than methapahtins, which these strict laws are aimed at. We have to end this madness.

Although he is riddled with a few misspellings, the most important points of his reasoning apply. People in the West have accepted the fact that the war on drugs is primarily a war on people. That cannabis in particular does not lead to increased violence or harm to others and that it can be a drug where other solutions have failed. Moreover, the fact that alcohol is legal – which is a drug – makes the whole argument about killing someone for drugs a hypocrisy.

Other people interfered too like EazR82,

Sick people who have raped their own children should be sentenced to death. Not that guy…. Justice people 🙄

Of course, laws are supposed to make the world safer – but with these arbitrary laws we know that it’s not about security, it’s about dominance. It is the state that tells you, “If you break our LAW, you will die!” It is an affirmation of authority and that the state is so powerful that it will put an end to your life even if the law is ridiculous.

Other people are a little more lenient with the judgment;

Like “strawburyfacechop” who had this to say;

The point is, he knows the absurd consequences, he took the risk, he pays for it.

the warning signs: the death penalty for drug trafficking in singapore is EVERYWHERE. They didn’t even tell you how much, they just make you assume that even a grain of drug is punishable by death. and yet people still do it, well

to anyone who says this law is ridiculous, yes it is, so don’t do drugs, just do it

as well as Biasedrapier26 who said;

I think it’s funny. Certainly the law will hopefully change at some point to exclude cannabis in the future, it is still illegal to transport something at this time. So are you breaking the law, do you accept the consequences? Not to mention, he changes the statement three times. How can you get people to trust you?

We expect people to obey the law and then we have charged them if they are caught, whether it is rape, shame of humility, robbery, murder, etc. So what is changing here? Just because other countries legalize cannabis doesn’t mean we can ship to SG.

Maybe I’m just heartless la because I believe in the rule of law.

Technically, it’s true that everyone in Singapore knows that drug trafficking brings the death penalty – it doesn’t get it right. Even the Nazis only “conformed to the law” when they tried systematically to remove all “unclean” people from the world.

Still – 80% of Singaporeans still prefer the “rule of law” over the value of life. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, maybe it’s willful ignorance, or maybe it’s state conditioning. It doesn’t matter because Omar is likely to die from it and in 2021 we can see that some countries are still living in the dark age when it comes to cannabis.

SINGAPORE IS HARD ON DRUGS, READ MORE …

CANNABIS CAN KILL YOU IN SINGAPORE, READ THIS!

OR..

SINGAPORE SAY CANNABIS FLOWER IS BAD AND IT CAN KILL THEM!