Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Nguyen Tuong Van

I have a reason for following the news about Nguyen Tuong Van...

I have a friend who passed through Singapore airport while carrying heroin from Bangkok to Sydney. He was one of the youngest people ever to be arrested for importing heroin in Australia. I assume that those who organised the deal were never caught. I just thank God that he was arrested in Sydney and not Singapore.

His prison sentence was short and he emerged a better person. He is the most loyal person I know, someone I can rely upon completely. When I was sick in Hong Kong, he was the friend I called in the middle of the night to take me to hospital. I have been safe in dangerous situations because he was around.

He still struggles with personal drug use but he would never again traffick drugs. Anybody touched by drug addiction is a victim. Some of he most tragic life stories I have ever heard are those of people suffering from drug addiction. Often the tragedy started before the drugs.

I hate the death penalty.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You might be interested in this - I think the guy is from Singapore.

http://averagetosser.blogspot.com/2005/11/hypocrisy-abounds.html

Anonymous said...

Interesting. I think it makes sense that people should have more sympathy when it is someone from their own country condemned to death.
Rather than condemning this as hypocrisy, I think it is better to see it as a starting point for developing even wider reaching compassion.

I can think of more relevant comparisons than Iraq to justify critisicm of something that is sanctioned by the government of another country.
In any case, in this case it is hardly the Australian government that is leading the outcry against the death penalty anyway.