Nguyen Tuong Van: No hug allowed before death

[koalathebear]

Australian Van Tuong Nguyen and his mother will be allowed to hold hands, but not to hug, before he is put to death. Singaporean officials today said they would grant Kim Nguyen an exemption from a total ban on physical contact with death row inmates

Comments

[weissman]

Every time I read this I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and my throat tightens up. What going to happen if she tries to hug her son, are they going to hang her also (Incredibly pissed) -Bob

[koalathebear]

Well it's done now and the politicians can pretend nothing ever happened .... Thank you for all your kind words, Bob.

[weissman]

Hug!
Robert

[lucie_p]

I have not been following this case, but I agree with you on the fact that not even having the possibility to consider the individual circumstances is bad. But then, to me the death penalty itself is a bad thing.

Yes, there are cases where it might be the "best" solution (For whom? Society?), but the danger of misuse outweighs anything that might be gained from such a penalty (like the government not having to keep someone in prison for decades). And the deterrence part clearly doesn't seem to work.

[koalathebear]

*sigh* That's exactly it. My father says well there is deterrence because the offender will never offend again but even he who is notionally supportive of the death penalty for heinous crimes believed that hanging was too extreme a punishment here especially given the circumstances.

As I said though, I'm currently living in China where they used to charge the family for the bullet although now they've switched to lethal injection - and even have a little car - a 'mobile' execution vehicle to go around administering justice.

[kiaforrest]

planning to hug MANY FOLKS today -- just because my own stupidity abounds and the hangman hovers even when I don't demonstrate my stupidity. I can think of at least 4 or 5 things I've done in my life AS stupid as running drugs.... Not lawbreaking stuff, bug Just as stupid. IF incredibly stupid was a death penalty offense here: eeek, I'd be loooooong gone

{{{{{{{koala}}}}}}}

[koalathebear]

Thank you kia dear .... *hugs you back*

I was being stupid and still hoping till the last minute but well ... that's how it goes...

[winterspel]

How heartbreaking!!

At least they will be able to touch. Imagine the wealth of emotion that will be in that limited contact. My heart breaks for him and his family that his immense stupidity should lead to death, and worse, death without loving embrace. I'm with Kia - I'm going to hug everyone tonight, whether they get it or not.

[koalathebear]

Thank you so much dear soft-hearted winterspel. I wrote to my family this morning. My brother has a weird thing of sometimes feeling sad when I'm sad - he just senses it even though he has no idea why. So I wrote and said:
In case today you suddenly feel inexplicably sad, it's probably because of me even though as dad says, the guy broke the law, he knew what he was doing.

I sent them a quote from an article:
TANYA PLIBERSEK, LABOR MP: I suspect one of the reasons the Singapore Government won't let her hug her son is how could you ever let go. If you were a mother, how could you ever let go of that... after that last hug?

My father wrote back and didn't tell me to get a grip or get over it, he said:
I know - it is a strange case. To start with, based on this case, nobody can say Australia is racist. The whole nation of Australia is at least aware of it and as some reporters said, it divided the nation down the middle. 46% of those polled opposed the execution

[alexandral]

This is so heart-breaking..

[koalathebear]

Thank you my dear and I am sorry for having such sorrowful posts to clog up your friends page .... I will try to be more merry in future :)

[alexandral]

O, i didn't mean it like that. We need to know that our "safe corner" is not the only place on Earth, and there are things which we need to fight!

[koalathebear]

I know what you mean! I was just saying that because I appreciate how nice you all are :)