HANGED

Singapore Executes First Woman in Almost 20 Years

Saridewi Djamani was put to death after being convicted of attempting to traffic heroin.

Singapore on Friday executed a woman for the first time since 2004 despite calls from human rights groups for the punishment to be stopped. Saridewi Djamani, 45, was hanged in Changi Prison, Singapore’s Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) said in a statement, five years after her conviction for attempting to traffic an ounce of heroin. Saridewi was caught with 31 grams of the drug, with the CNB noting that Singaporean laws permit the death penalty for trafficking any amount of heroin over 15 grams. Hairdresser Yen May Woen, 36, was the last woman to be hanged in the country, also on a drug trafficking conviction. Chiara Sangiorgio, Amnesty International’s death penalty expert, said in a statement this week that hanging drug traffickers is “unconscionable,” adding that there is “no evidence that the death penalty has a unique deterrent effect or that it has any impact on the use and availability of drugs.”