Save Nguyen Tuong Van

[peaked]

Im sick of hearing about how he deserves such a cruel punishment, just because the poster wouldn't ever consider such an act themselves. No doubt his life would have been vastly different (and far less advantaged) than most of the people here, given that he was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. I'm sure having your life threatened by a large crime syndicate would also have an effect on ones decision. Until you have been in such a desperate situation, I don't think you have any right to judge this man.

Certainly some prejudice also exists towards "heroin junkies" in some of the many narrow minded replies.

 

[aunty establishment]

I don't think you guys firing ad homs at the people saying "let him hang" is exactly elevating the debate. If you want to make progress on this matter, I've given several points of contact for you to reach out effectively, rather than commenting amongst an isolated community which has zero influence either way. Personally, I read all this as simply venting frustration due to your own impotence. If it makes you that angry, don't waste your time with small minds - get out there and help him. As I've said before.

 

[silvia saint]

Well yes peaked it is an illegal drug.. therefor the average user is never going to know the purity or exact quantity of the drug. Im sure putting more readily available PURE herion on the street is the way to go mate.. jesus

If it was available cheaply and was always in supply there would be a shit load more addicts period

in the netherlands, marijuana usage rates have remained at the same levels they were prior to legalization. the "everybody is going to run out and try smack if it were to become legal" argument is unfounded. don't even start with the whole "smack is more addictive" argument either, it's irrelevant. cigarettes didn't have to be banned to see the number of smokers decline. honest information and education works fine but when it comes to prohibited substances it doesn't divide the public and keep governments in power.

i'm not going to reply to any response to this post, enlightened members please feel free to post on my behalf regarding any criticism. i'm busy enough fighting similar battles in a thread of the same nature in aus social.

 

[volume-A]

Silvia saint pot is always going to be plentiful becuase you can grow it. Trying to make herion yourself is alittle harder than growing pot.

Dont put words in my mouth "everybody is going to run out and try smack if it were to become legal" all im saying is the more herion on the street, the higher probability its going to come into contact with people. More herion=bigger maket for it=more users

Im sorry but the less drugs on the street the better, theres always going to be a market i know, but the smaller the better.

 

[Bent Mk2]

I'm sure having your life threatened by a large crime syndicate would also have an effect on ones decision. Until you have been in such a desperate situation, I don't think you have any right to judge this man.

Um, lets not forget he was apparently trying to help pay of his brother's drug debts - its not like some 'godfather' wandered up to him on the street and put a gun to his head, threatening his family...this wasn't an accident - TWO people got themselves in trouble way over their heads, and unfortunately this is the tragic result.

 

[KemicalBurn]

in the netherlands, marijuana usage rates have remained at the same levels they were prior to legalization. the "everybody is going to run out and try smack if it were to become legal" argument is unfounded. don't even start with the whole "smack is more addictive" argument either, it's irrelevant. cigarettes didn't have to be banned to see the number of smokers decline. honest information and education works fine but when it comes to prohibited substances it doesn't divide the public and keep governments in power.

What nonsense - you once again are failing to understand the addictiveness of heroin. you cant compare it to cigarettes or marijuana, you tried this argument in Aus social and got shot down in flames for your ignorance 8)

If heroin were to be made legal, do you honestly think it will decrease power from the governments? if you do, then you truly are a fool.

i'm not going to reply to any response to this post, enlightened members please feel free to post on my behalf regarding any criticism. i'm busy enough fighting similar battles in a thread of the same nature in aus social.

come down off the cross

 

[BigTrancer]

Do not attempt to bait one another in this forum. This is not social.

BigTrancer.

 

[FaTz]

^^^So he can't discuss and have his own view's in any forum other than Social? I think that's a bit rich.

 

[silvia saint]

What nonsense - you once again are failing to understand the addictiveness of heroin. you cant compare it to cigarettes or marijuana, you tried this argument in Aus social and got shot down in flames for your ignorance 8)

i'm eating some words here by posting, but i won't let lies be spread.
nobody shot me down in social so to speak. more people supported my views on legalizing heroin than those who opposed. your petty attacks would have some believe i compare heroin to sugar, which i clearly do not. what you fail to understand is how addictive nicotine is.

more problems stem from heroin's legal status than the drug itself and it is on this fact that i base my support for legalization.

If heroin were to be made legal, do you honestly think it will decrease power from the governments? if you do, then you truly are a fool.
come down off the cross

why wouldn't it take some power away? the majority of people on this site are aware that the so-called drug war is not waged out of any governments concern for the health of it's population, but rather as a social experiment that has financial and political benefits that far outweigh those that would be achieved through federal or state controlled sale and supply.

the whole nation has been tied down debating whether pretty face or ugly face or asian face should be jailed/executed whilst the government fucks up this country even more and the iraq war ends up somewhere near the sports section. lucky for them that they have the war on terror now just in case society wakes up to the lie that is the war on drugs. i could go on about the privatization of prisons, drug money laundered through the banks that helps capitalism thrive etc, but i'd be wasting my time wouldn't i?

 

[volume-A]

http://www.geocities.com/law4u2003/nguyentuongyanappeal.htm

Interesting link, go's through what happened word for word, vans's statement anyway

 

[silvia saint]

^^^So he can't discuss and have his own view's in any forum other than Social? I think that's a bit rich.

seemingly stalking my posts and dismissing them with invalid points and or insulting me constantly is a bit rich also.

 

[breakyaself]

Private messages are just as useless as emails... :D

(do I win the award for bad joke of the year?)

Yes.

 

[peaked]

Silvia saint pot is always going to be plentiful becuase you can grow it. Trying to make herion yourself is alittle harder than growing pot.

I agree that Heroin is harder to make, though since it can be made from opium (obtained from poppies) it's also going to be difficult to stamp out such a trade since theres always going to be somewhere that people will grow them for this purpose.

Im sorry but the less drugs on the street the better, theres always going to be a market i know, but the smaller the better.

I also agree with this, but I dont think it will ever be achieved through prohibition. The last 50 years should be proof enough of this. Killing this man will do nothing to affect the supply AT ALL. As soon as the guy he was meeting realised he didnt show up, another mule would have been organised and a new shipment (for that syndicate alone) probably made it over within a few days. How many more people have to be murdered before they realise draconian drug laws dont work? 1000 people? 100, 000? 1, 000, 000 ?

Um, lets not forget he was apparently trying to help pay of his brother's drug debts - its not like some 'godfather' wandered up to him on the street and put a gun to his head, threatening his family...this wasn't an accident - TWO people got themselves in trouble way over their heads, and unfortunately this is the tragic result.

While I hardly think a "godfather" figure would go out on the streets and openly put a gun to a lowly drug mules head, I dont think it would be too far fetched to think that he had no idea about his brothers involvement with the syndicate. He then gets approached one day by a bunch of thugs, who drag him into a side alley, tell him what his brother did, beat him up and put a gun to his head, telling him if he doesnt do what they ask he will die and so will the rest of his family. I certainly know if such an ordeal happened to me, I would have a long hard think about my options, which would hardly be as black and white as many people like to make them out to be.

What nonsense - you once again are failing to understand the addictiveness of heroin. you cant compare it to cigarettes or marijuana, you tried this argument in Aus social and got shot down in flames for your ignorance 8)

While I agree that the addictiveness of heroin is on a higher level to most other drugs, I know alot of people whose heroin use is far from an addiction (consuming it between 1 and 4 times in a year). Infact their use of other drugs such as weed and alcohol is far more prevalent. The reason is, they respect the powerful nature of heroin and thus are very careful with it. If people were educated to respect heroin, rather than fear it, i'm sure we wouldnt have the massive social stigma associated with heroin and its users. This itself causes alot of the problems associated with heroin users imo. As society hates users so much, many users choose to hate society back, and thus loose any respect for the people in general, and those with an addiction will have no problems robbing someone to pay for their next hit. If society supported them in their hard times, provided them with pharmaceutical grade heroin (in decreasing quantities, until they no longer felt the need to consume heroin), hell maybe even offered them some kind of counselling, surely they'd be better off than being "swept under the carpet" to be forgotten about by the rest of society. By pretending the issue doesnt exist, which is imo all prohibition does, we will never achieve anything but creating a huge social divide between users and non-users, not to mention maximising the harm to the end consumer, while creating a thriving market for crime syndicates, gangs and petty thugs.

 

[BigTrancer]

So he can't discuss and have his own view's in any forum other than Social?

My point is that to avoid duplicating the material already contained in the Social thread (linked on Page 1) people should attempt to develop strong arguments that address the issue based on factual evidence, rather than provoking the opposition into making emotional statements which can be used against them. (If there is no evidence for an opinionative argument, then people would benefit from framing their opinions with the reasons they are held, rather than spite for those holding opposing views). My comment was general, for all contributors to the thread.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/natio...or-deathrow-man/2005/11/07/1131212008071.html

http://www.theage.com.au/news/natio...iction-debunked/2005/11/07/1131212008050.html

BigTrancer.

 

[KostoN]

while i apsolutley sympothise with his friends and family, it is not a murder, he has been convicted of a crime which in singapore incurs the death penalty
wile it is a shame there is little hope for his relesae because of a couple of thousand people signing a pertition or sending outlines of their hands......................there are far bigger problems in the world than one convicted CRIMINAL serving his punishment. just because in australia there are different laws, its like saying u cand arrest me for having 10 ounces of weed wen in amsterdam its legal

It is not murder? I'm pretty sure it is.

Do you relise how many people are in prison because of drug related crimes ? If they aren't in there for drug-related crimes, someone down the line they have been affected by drugs.

 

[Galant]

KostoN,
murder: unlawful and intentional killing of a human being by another human
being.
source: oxford dictionary

drugs isnt an excuse to comit crime, granted a good number of CONVICTED CRIMINALS are in prison because of drug related crime. we are talking about two different things, you are saying that the legal system in singapore is flawed there fore making his excocution a murder, while i agree that it is an extreamly harsh punishment when you go into another country wether conciously or not you accept their laws. i am saying that in singaporean law he was convicted and threrfore he has no choice but to serve his punishment. you are saying (correct me if i am wrong) that because in another country he would have been tryed more 'fairly' he shouldnt have to serve the sentance that he was given but a lighter sentance?, if not then how do you base this as a harsh sentance?

the deffonition of murder extends to even if it was found he was wrongly convicted after his excocution it would still not be murder as at the time of his excocution he was deamed guilty therefore making his death lawful..........

 

[Psychocibe]

It may be sad, it may be an injustice, but hell, none of us are gonna do anything about it coz most of us are just a bunch of suburbanites with no real initiative. So give it a rest, talk all you like but that poor fool ain't gonna get out of the shit he is in. Bleed your hearts out but it's all in vain. All is in vain really in a western society such as ours....so sit back, eat some cheezels, have a wank and a smoke and continue being the apathetic wankers that we are :D

Peace Out

 

[Galant]

i think its saft to say that you missed the point of this whole discussion.

 

[BigTrancer]

PM to plead for Nguyen
By Edmund Tadros
November 16, 2005 - 11:18AM

Prime Minister John Howard will make a last-ditch plea at trade talks this week to try to stop 25-year-old Australian Nguyen Tuong Van from being hanged.

His decision to raise the matter at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum comes as the UN says the hanging is illegal.

Mr Howard said today: "We have tried everything and will continue to try things.

"But I would be truly dishonest to the family of this man and the many people who want him spared to pretend that I think there is any real hope that the Singaporean Government will change its mind."

Nevertheless, he said he would raise the issue bilaterally with Singapore at the APEC talks in South Korea this week.

"Whatever fine hope there is," he said, "is not advanced by megaphone diplomacy or giving public lectures to other countries."

Human rights breach

A United Nations death penalty expert says the decision by a Singapore court to execute Australian drug smuggler Nguyen Tuong Van breaches international human rights law.

Philip Alston, the UN Human Rights Commission's watchdog on executions, said a rule requiring a mandatory death penalty for certain drug trafficking convictions was not consistent with international human rights guidelines.

But Mr Alston today said he could not force Singapore to overturn the decision.

The Australian Government and supporters have been pursuing ways to spare Nguyen's life after he lost an appeal for clemency last month.

The 25-year-old Melbourne man, who was caught with 396 grams of heroin at Changi Airport in 2002, could be executed within weeks.

Lesser sentence

Singapore-based human rights lawyer and anti-death penalty campaigner M Ravi last week revealed he wrote to Mr Alston and pleaded for him to intervene.

Mr Alston today said that under international law the court was obliged to consider the individual circumstances of the offence.

"International law says you've got to at least leave open that possibility that the court might decide to impose a lesser sentence in this particular case," he told ABC radio.

"I don't think it (the Singapore Court of Appeal) has worked through in the systematic way that it should have the decisions which emanate from the Privy Council.

"It has acknowledged that it is going to take full account of those decisions, it quotes some of them, but it doesn't draw what I would consider to be the clear inference that emerges from those decisions (that the mandatory death penalty is a violation of international law)."

But Mr Alston acknowledged the UN could not force Singapore to change its mind.

"The international human rights system is very limited in what it can do," he said.

- smh.com.au with AAP

From: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/pm-to-plead-for-nguyen/2005/11/16/1132016831628.html

BigTrancer

 

[BongoBongo]

Again...again

"...The ultimate legislative objective of the Singapore Drugs act 1975 was and is to prevent the growth of drug addiction in Singapore..."

Nguyen was caught by widely worded legislation.

1. He had no actual intention of importing the drugs into Singapore...He was in transit and on his way to Australia.

2. He never formally entered Singapore in terms of the Singapore Immigration act....He landed at Changi International Airport in transit from Cambodia.

So, theoretically, the Singapore Drugs Act would/should NOT APPLY to Nguyen.


However, we can speculate and ration reason toward the outcome BUT, the poor chap is in another land.....damn it.

Such an obscenity as State institutionalized murder is a revenge mentality anchored in ignorance.