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Malaysian Bar troubled over imminent execution of M'sian in Singapore
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The Malaysian Bar is extremely troubled over the reports of the imminent execution of Prabagaran Srivijayan in Singapore.

The 29-year old Malaysian citizen was convicted of drug trafficking, and sentenced to the mandatory death penalty on July 22, 2012.

His family was recently informed by the authorities that he is scheduled to be hanged to death at Changi Prison Complex on July 14, 2017.

The Malaysian Bar appeals to the Government of Singapore for clemency, to stay the execution of Prabagaran Srivijayan and commute his death sentence to one of life imprisonment.

The Malaysian Bar’s position is that every individual has an inherent right to life.

The right to life is absolute, universal and inalienable, and must be held inviolate, regardless of the crime that may have been committed.

We recall the immortal words of the late Justice Ishmael Mohamed, the former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa:

Death is different. The dignity of all of us, in a caring civilisation, must not be compromised by the act of repeating, albeit for a wholly different objective, what we find to be so repugnant in the conduct of the offender in the first place.


GEORGE VARUGHESE is Malaysian Bar president.

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