Death Sentence for Drugs Worth $2200

Your Excellency,


We, the undersigned, are writing to ask you to grant clemency to Roshamima Roslan, a young Malaysian woman sentenced to death by your courts in early 2011. Her crime was attempting to smuggle 21.48g of heroin into Singapore. We ask that you commute her sentence to a jail term of 5 to 7 years, which we feel is a more appropriate sentence for the offense. Please note that any length of jail term would be preferable to the current sentence.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's "World Drug Report 2011", in Singapore the retail value of heroin is 102.8USD, putting the street value of the heroin Roshamima was convicted of smuggling at only 2208.14USD. She was certainly only going to receive a tiny percentage of the retail value for acting as a drug mule. The very low value of the drugs acts as a powerful mitigating factor, one that should be weighted heavily when considering clemency.

Mid and high level drug traffickers look for people in desperate situations, so that they may be easily manipulated into acting as drug mules for the drug traffickers. These vulnerable people ultimately end up serving harsh sentences that are designed to be directed at the higher level drug traffickers. We feel this is the case in Roshamima's situation. Furthermore, at the time of the offense, she was in her early 20s, an age when not everyone has reached full mental maturity. While a young age shouldn't excuse drug trafficking, if should certainly be a factor considered when determining if clemency should be granted.

Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs has stated, "Singapore imposes capital punishment only for the most serious crimes". It cannot be argued that a 2208.14USD drug crime is a "most serious crime". When the value of the drugs is so low, it shows that Roshamima's smuggling venture could not have been highly organized, and even those who used her as a drug mule are likely not high level traffickers, as it would not be very profitable to smuggle such small amounts. That said, granting clemency in this case would not see a rise in the smuggling of small quantities of drugs, as it simply would not be profitable for the drug organizations, who require large returns on their smuggling ventures to make them worth while.

We recognize Singapore's right to protect itself from the importation of drugs, and that is why we are asking that the sentence to be commuted to a prison term, not that the crime be forgiven. This case gives Singapore the perfect opportunity to show it upholds human rights by commuting the sentence to a prison term when the death penalty is clearly not warranted. At the same time, it shows potential drug traffickers that Singapore takes the trafficking of even small amounts of drugs seriously, but having the conviction upheld and a prison term introduced.

With many countries opposed to or starting to question the death penalty being used against drug mules, including Roshamima's home country, Malaysia, this case holds the potential to illustrate that Singapore takes the death penalty seriously, and is willing to take decisive action when a death sentence is clearly unjust. We feel that Singapore has much to gain from granting Roshamima Roslan clemency, and nothing to lose by doing so, as detailed in the above petition
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Thank you for taking the time to read our concerns, and we hope that you will take them into consideration when making your decision.

Respectfully yours,