I find this whole issue simply another reminder of how the "white-elite" look down at the "lower whites".

Van Ngyuen, to the average street junkie, was one of the "big fish", someone who had 1 million dollars worth of heroin on his person. To speak about him as one of the little guys who got caught in the system is a sickenning slur on the names of those who have died alone in some street alley, from just one of the 26,000 hits Van would have supplied.

Sure it is barbaric to kill anyone, but the way a lot of people went about Van's case(the massive public funeral, the massive media and political attention) one could not be blamed for believing that he was totally innocent.

He was not a good person, infact, like his brother, he was a horribly selfish person who thought little for those he may have helped to ruin or indeed kill.

Instead of crying, his mother ought to ask herself what she did to raise such selfish, greedy, capitalistic people. Is it true that she sold drugs with them when they were young from their house?

Spare a thought for the poor, down-and-out, toothless, dirty junky, rather than treat their killers like some kind of apostle.

Are you serious Steel?
"Mugabe can do what he likes in his own country/ why is he a beast?"
It cannot be overstated just how badly Mugabe has ruined Zimbabwe. It is unfortunate that wherever you go in that country most people (black and white) remember the Ian Smith days with fondness-at least there was food on the table, fuel in the bowsers and a legal system free from political interference (by comparison anyway).
The problem I have with Amnesty is that it is what I term a 'bleeding heart organisation'-it latches onto emotive issues and loses sight of the big picture. Zimbabwe is an illustration of this- Fraser and the likes of Amnesty rushed a black parliament into Zimbabwe led by a Chinese backed dictator, Mugabe, and omitted to consider just how bad life under him would be.
Amnesty has to consider what causes it lobbies for much more carefully if it is to retain the confidence of the public.

I dont know what to make of all this ( at days end he was a dispensible slope ) where he was born life is worth 5 cents ( and yu get change --hey nobody is going to miss him !) just one more we wont have to worry about ! when i first heard a bloke / an aussie was to be hung until i heard this guys name i had visions of ohh god ! an aussie ( you know bryan brown type bush hat !) dinkum aussie first came to mind ---i look on the box and its ''do hung low '' or whatever the name is --its hardly worth news print ay --sorry guys they die in thier droves daily over there , nobody bats an eyelid ! --its not worthy of news.
i spend much time in russia again life's worth zip ! over there and bleeding hearts are treated as mugs ! reality check ay !
lets talk of something worthwhile ?

As a supporter of both Amnesty and of Rights Australia, I don't think this article will do much to further human rights issues. It's message is valid but I don't feel a public forum is the best place to air these opinions. Discussion between the two leaderships would have been more appropriate and more likely to result in better campaigns for the future which is surely the goal of both organisations. Public attacks only risk undermining people's confidence in both groups.

Capital punishment is a total barbarity and any society that resorts to killing its citizens in order to keep control is a greatly dimished one. No-one deserves to swing to a tortuous death on the end of a rope and how anyone can witness the anguish of Van Nguyen's mother and say her son deserved to die is beyond me. I doubt there would be many mothers with sons of their own speaking out with such callous disregard for her life sentence of grief and suffering.

There is no evidence that the death penalty solves the drug problem anyway. Even if there was, it wouldn't justify the taking of innocent life. Numerous cases exist of innocent people being sent to their death.

The irony is that alcohol and tobacco are just as addictive as hard drugs and cause just as much suffering and just as many deaths, and yet the people who peddle these drugs are rewarded with billion dollar profits.

stevo48,

That young man wasn't going to sell drugs in Singapore. Yet that government took it upon themselves to play God and take his life.

It's the same deal in California where they left Stanley Williams on death row for 24 years then the Governor again played God.

Amnesty can't stop that.

The death penalty solves nothing. It's revenge. Nothing more nothing less.

I have to say that the arguments Howard Glenn and Greg Barns present here are weak, and smack more of sour grapes than any real commitment to develop more effective human rights campaigning.

Firstly, I think Amnesty International (AI) has good grounds not to engage in consumer boycotts. As an organisation that campaigns on human rights abuse all around the world, how would Amnesty chose which nations to boycott. To take Glenn's and Barn's argument, obviously Singapore. But USA also executes people, as does China, Saudi Arabia, and scores of countries more. Surely we would also boycott Australian made, given our countries treatment of asylum seekers.

Very quickly, if Amnesty was to remain consistent, they would be calling for boycotts of everywhere except New Zealand, Norwary and Tuvalu. This leads to AI becoming a defacto anti-trade organisation, rather than a human rights organisation. Note: this is not the only argument against consumer boycotts, but a significant one for AI.