Foreign Drug Offenders More Likely to Face Death

By Matthew Charles Cardinale Reprint | | Print |

Matthew Cardinale

ATLANTA, Georgia, U.S., Sep 16 2011 (IPS) - In many of the countries that permit execution for drug offences, the majority or even all of those on death row are foreigners, according to a new report by Harm Reduction International (HRI).

The report, “The Death Penalty for Drug Offences – Global Overview 2011: Shared Responsibility and Shared Consequences”, is a follow-up to a recent survey on the death penalty for drug offences by HRI.

There are 32 nations or territories that execute people for violating drug laws, including China, Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore,

Overall, there are hundreds, even thousands, of non-nationals who are facing or have faced the death penalty for drugs in recent years. HRI estimates the number is actually more than a thousand per year, including estimates of executions carried out by governments – especially China – which keep data regarding the death penalty a secret.

These foreigners include citizens of Australia, France, Israel, Liberia, Mexico, Mongolia, The Netherlands, Nepal, Nigeria, Peru, The Philippines, Sweden, Turkey, Britain, United States, and Zambia.

Brian Evans, a campaigner for Amnesty International USA’s Death Penalty Abolition Campaign, said the phenomenon of foreign nationals being executed in these countries for drug trafficking is “sort of a combination of discrimination against foreign nationals, and we’re talking about crimes that disproportionately affect foreign nationals.”

“My expertise is with Saudi Arabia, I do know their justice system is stacked to [favour] people with ties to the royal family and a lot of money. Foreign nationals don’t have those ties,” Evans said.

“From our perspective, like a lot of responses to global drug problems, it’s totally out of proportion for the crime that was committed,” Alan Clear, said executive director of the U.S.-based Harm Reduction Coalition, which is not affiliated with HRI.

“The death penalty clearly hasn’t stopped drug trafficking or the desire of countries primarily to buy drugs. People take enormous risks because of the profits involved. They get caught up in a massive drug operation. They’re not the main dealers, they’re basically carrying drugs from one place to another. You’re not going to disrupt the drug market by killing them, they’re totally minor players,” Clear said.

“The demand is coming from the West. We need to do more about the demand, in our own country, our own drug problem,” he said, adding that the U.S. should take a public health approach and pursue decriminalisation.

In Indonesia alone, about 100 people are on death row for drug offences, and about 80 percent of those are foreigners. Ironically, Indonesia persists in executing foreign nationals, even though Indonesia recently got into an international dispute with Saudi Arabia after the Saudi government beheaded an Indonesian citizen without notifying Indonesia.

“While it seems clear that foreigners play a significant role in smuggling drugs into Indonesia, the fact that four out of five prisoners awaiting execution on drugs trafficking charges are foreigners raises certain questions in terms of possible discrimination in relation to both criminal enforcement and sentencing in drug-related cases,” the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, wrote in 2009, as cited in the HRI report.

In Kuwait, at least 14 people have been executed for drug offences since 1998, and most, if not all, of these are believed to have been foreigners, according to HRI.

In Saudi Arabia, 53 of 62 executions for drugs that occurred in 2007 and 2008 were of foreign nationals, HRI reported.

And in Singapore, at least two foreigners have been executed for drug-related offenses over the last decade.

“This report should encourage governments to reflect on their counter-narcotics assistance to states which continue to sentence people to death for drug offences,” Rick Lines, executive director of HRI, said in a statement.

“No government in the world can say with absolute confidence that these laws won’t potentially lead to a death sentence for one of its own citizens. What we would not impose at home, we should not expose people to abroad,” Lines said.

“Drug policies must respect human rights, international standards and proven public health measures to be effective,” Lines added. “It is simply wrong for a government to try and kill its way out of a drug problem. These killings are arbitrary and morally repugnant.”

HRI argues the executions violate Article 6(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that the death penalty may only be applied to the “most serious crimes”.

Human rights monitors from the United Nations have also expressed concerns about the number of foreigners who are on death row.