Singapore on Friday hanged a woman convicted of attempting to traffic an ounce of heroin, the first execution of a female prisoner in nearly two decades in what human rights groups decried as a “grim milestone” for the city state and its notoriously harsh anti-drug laws.

Saridewi Djamani, a 45-year-old Singaporean, was put to death on Friday in Changi Prison, the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) said in a statement issued hours after the hanging took place.

She was sentenced to the mandatory death penalty in 2018 after being convicted of possessing 31 grams of heroin.

“She was accorded full due process under the law and was represented by legal counsel throughout the process,” the CNB said, adding that Singapore’s laws permit the death penalty for trafficking anything above 15 grams of heroin.

Saridewi is the first woman to be hanged in Singapore since hairdresser Yen May Woen, 36, in 2004, also convicted of drug trafficking.

Singapore maintains some of the world’s harshest drug laws and its government remains adamant that capital punishment works to deter drug traffickers and maintain public safety.

Under the law, anyone caught trafficking, importing or exporting certain quantities of illegal drugs like methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine or cannabis products receives the mandatory death sentence.

Singapore has now hanged 15 people – including foreigners and an intellectually disabled man – since resuming executions for drug convictions last year, in what activists say is an accelerated pace after ending a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.

“Capital punishment is used only for the most serious crimes, such as the trafficking of significant quantities of drugs which cause very serious harm, not just to individual drug abusers, but also to their families and the wider society,” the CNB said.

Chorus of criticism

Saridewi’s hanging triggered renewed outrage from rights groups.

“The government of Singapore violates human belief in redemption and the capacity for rehabilitation by insisting instead on taking drastic and irreversible action,” said Celia Ouellette, founder of the non-profit group Responsible Business Initiative for Justice.

“Singapore risks not only its international reputation but its financial future as well. It’s time for it to abolish capital punishment once and for all.”

Adilur Rahman Khan, secretary general of France-based NGO International Federation for Human Rights called Saridewi’s execution a “grim milestone” and renewed calls for the Singaporean government to stop executions.

Amnesty International’s death penalty expert Chiara Sangiorgio said the latest execution “defied international safeguards on the use of the death penalty.”

“There is no evidence that the death penalty has a unique deterrent effect or that it has any impact on the use and availability of drugs. As countries around the world do away with the death penalty and embrace drug policy reform, Singapore’s authorities are doing neither,” she said in a statement.

Figures shared by the Ministry of Home Affairs with CNN in 2022 said about 50 people were on death row, the majority of whom were men. The number of women inmates on death row is not known.

Criminal lawyer Joshua Tong said those convicted of drug trafficking were usually men, but he had seen “his fair share” of women drug offenders.

On the issue of drug crimes, Tong said there was generally “no distinction between men and women for criminal punishments.”

“The only distinction made would be on whether caning is to be imposed,” he added, noting that Singaporean law only permits the caning of men.

Capital punishment for cannabis

Saridewi’s death was the second execution carried out in Singapore this week.

On Wednesday Mohd Aziz bin Hussain, 57, was put to death for trafficking around 50 grams (1.7 ounces) of heroin.

The execution of another Singaporean, a delivery driver, is scheduled for next Wednesday, activist Kirsten Han from the local anti-death penalty group Transformative Justice Collective (TJC) said.

“TJC condemns, in the strongest terms, the state’s bloodthirsty streak. We demand an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty,” the group wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

A growing tally of inmates are being sent to the gallows but a complete list of death row inmates are not made public, rights groups say, making Singapore’s drug trafficking enforcement extremely opaque.

In May, a Singaporean man named Tangaraju Suppiah was executed after he was convicted of trying to traffic around 2.2 pounds of cannabis, an execution that sparked particularly loud international criticism, partly because a growing number of jurisdictions around the world have either legalized or decriminalized the drug.

Last year, the hanging of 34-year-old Malaysian Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam sparked international outcry following psychologists’ assessment he was intellectually disabled.

The case put Singapore’s zero-tolerance drug laws back under scrutiny, with rights advocates arguing the mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking is an inhumane punishment.

The death penalty has done little to curtail the illegal drug trade across the region, activists say.

The illegal drug trade in Asia surged to “extreme levels,” according to report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in June. T

he report said crime groups were establishing new trafficking routes to evade enforcement crackdowns and methamphetamine prices had hit fresh lows.

It said meth seizures in East and Southeast Asia, which spiked to record highs during the pandemic as cartels switched to bigger and riskier bulk shipments, returned to pre-Covid numbers last year.

Coup leaders in Niger said Thursday they had won broad army support and called for calm in the troubled country, but former colonial power France said it did not consider the apparent putsch to be “final”.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said there were “ways out” for coup plotters who chose to heed global condemnation of President Mohamed Bazoum’s ouster.

The latest target of a coup in Africa’s turbulent Sahel region, Bazoum has been confined to his residence since Wednesday by his own presidential guard.

He had defiantly stood his ground as denunciations of the putsch swelled from African and international organisations and allies Germany and the United States, as well as France.

“The hard-won (democratic) gains will be safeguarded,” Bazoum said on Twitter, which is being rebranded as X.

“All Nigeriens who love democracy and freedom would want this.”

Colonna said Friday that Bazoum was in “good health” and had spoken to President Emmanuel Macron.

“If you hear me talking about an attempted coup, it’s because we don’t consider things final,” she said. “There is still a way out if those responsible listen to the international community.”

France, a key ally that has 1,500 soldiers in Niger, previously called for “the restoration of the integrity of Nigerien democratic institutions”.

But Armed forces chief General Abdou Sidikou Issa has swung his weight behind the putschists.

“The military command… has decided to subscribe to the declaration made by the Defence and Security Forces… in order to avoid a deadly confrontation,” he said in a statement.

The landlocked state is one of the world’s poorest. Since gaining independence from France in 1960, it has experienced four coups as well as numerous other attempts — including two previously against Bazoum.

The 63-year-old is one of a dwindling group of elected presidents and pro-Western leaders in the Sahel, where since 2020 a rampaging jihadist insurgency has triggered coups in Mali and Burkina Faso.

Their juntas have forced out French troops, and in Mali the ruling military has woven a close alliance with Russia.

PRO-COUP DEMONSTRATIONS

Coup leader Colonel Amadou Abdramane appeared on national television Thursday urging “the population to remain calm”, after a group peeled off from a gathering in support of the putschists in Niamey and ransacked the headquarters of Bazoum’s PNDS party, setting fire to vehicles in the car park.

About 1,000 people, mostly youngsters, had turned out before the National Assembly in the capital as well as several hundred in the town of Dosso, AFP journalists saw.

Some held Russian flags and chanted anti-French and pro-Russian slogans.

“We want the same thing as in Mali and Burkina Faso,” shouted 19-year-old student Alassane Alhousseini.

“We want to take our destiny in our own hands.”

Niger’s coup leaders — 10 men in military uniform — had appeared on television overnight.

Colonel Abdramane announced they were taking power following “the continued deterioration of the security situation, poor economic and social governance”.

Under the banner of the Defence and Security Forces (FDS), they had “decided to put an end to the regime”, and all institutions were being suspended, the borders closed and a night-time curfew imposed.

The president of neighbouring Benin, Patrice Talon, had been expected in the capital to mediate, but there was no further news of the mission.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on Thursday demanded Bazoum’s “immediate release”, saying he “remains the legitimate and legal President of Niger”.

COUP-PRONE

The latest coup effort raises fears of further instability and a “risk of disengagement” on the security front, said Alain Antil, head of the Sub-Saharan Africa Centre at France’s International Relations Institute (IFRI).

“Bazoum was very fragile. His election was contested by the opposition… and it was known that a certain number of army officers were fairly unhappy with the situation,” said Antil.

The statement from the army “seems to confirm that the coup is in the process of succeeding”, he added.

The parties in Niger’s ruling coalition denounced “a suicidal and anti-republican madness” and condemnation poured in from regional and global leaders.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres voiced alarm at instability in the Sahel, saying he is “extremely worried” about the extremism and military upheaval.

UN humanitarian operations have been suspended in Niger following the coup, a spokesman said.

The number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in the country climbed from 1.9 million in 2017 to 4.3 million in 2023, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had spoken to Bazoum to offer support from Washington, which deploys about 1,100 troops in Niger.

Russia — isolated since invading Ukraine in February 2022 — joined nations appealing for Bazoum’s release and peaceful dialogue.

POVERTY AND JIHADISM

Bazoum took office after elections two years ago, in Niger’s first peaceful transition since independence.

He had been interior minister and right-hand man to former president Mahamadou Issoufou, who voluntarily stepped down after two terms.

The country of 22 million is two-thirds desert and frequently ranks at the bottom of the UN’s Human Development Index.

Niger faces two jihadist campaigns — one in the southwest, which swept in from Mali in 2015, and the other in the southeast, involving jihadists from northeastern Nigeria.