Australia will not lobby against the death penalty in Southeast Asia but will continue to try to save its citizens from the gallows, Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday.
He was speaking as the body of executed drug trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van arrived in his Melbourne hometown from Singapore.
Nguyen, 25, was hanged on Friday despite a strident campaign to save his life.
"I think we have to be realistic about what can be achieved," Howard told national broadcaster ABC.
"We're not going to change the attitude of countries in the region about capital punishment. And when you talk about the region you have to include in that, of course, China," he added.
Howard said that he would resist calls to have capital punishment reintroduced in Australia and would lobby hard for citizens on death row overseas.
Two Australians in Vietnam and one in China face execution for drug offences.
In Indonesia nine Australians arrested in Bali over a heroin smuggling attempt could face death by firing squad if convicted.
Nguyen's lawyer, Lex Lasry, pledged to continue his campaign to have the death sentence scrapped around the region.
He said that Nguyen's death could become a "signpost to demonstrate the way young people who get into the situation that he was in can transform themselves."
He added: "His transformation over the last two years was unbelievable. It was inspiring, complete and quite magnificent."
Nguyen, who arrived in Melbourne as a Vietnamese refugee at the age of two, was caught with almost 400g of heroin at Changi airport three years ago while in transit from Cambodia to Australia.
Many Australians declared themselves happy that the convicted drug smuggler was dead.
His interdiction at Changi airport meant less heroin on Australia's streets and fewer potentially lethal overdoses, they say.
A Roy Morgan opinion poll conducted 24 hours before Nguyen's execution showed 47 percent of Australians were for it and 46 percent against, with the remainder undecided.
A Catholic mass and funeral will be held at Melbourne Cathedral on Wednesday.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS