Kirsten Han on the fight to abolish the death penalty in Singapore

Last year, after a two-year COVID-19 hiatus, Singapore’s authorities quietly restarted the execution of prisoners on death row. This prompted renewed scrutiny of the city-state’s mandatory use of the death penalty, even in relatively minor drug cases, with the United Nations expressing its concern over a pending “surge in execution notices.” The resumption of executions was also stridently opposed by a network of activists inside Singapore, who have been working for years to end the country’s use of capital punishment.

Among the most active Singaporean abolitionists is Kirsten Han, a journalist who currently edits The Mekong Review, a quarterly literary magazine covering Asian culture and politics. Han has been active in the anti-death penalty movement since 2010, and is a member of the Transformative Justice Collective, a collective that seeks the reform of Singapore’s criminal justice system. She also frequently opines on abolition fight, and other issues involving Singaporean politics and society, via her weekly newsletter We, The Citizens.

Han spoke with The Diplomat about the current state of the abolition fight in Singapore and regionally, the class factors that determine who falls victim to the country’s severe anti-drug laws, and what the Singaporean government’s response says about its views of political dissent.