Kirsten Han 韩俐颖

@kirstenhan.com

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🇸🇬 Writer and activist. Author of 'The Singapore I Recognise: Essays on home, community and hope'. Editor-in-Chief of @mekongreview.com. Everything Elf at https://wethecitizens.net. Member of @transformjusticesg.bsky.social and @adpan.bsky.social.

Headline: Singaporean mum discovers canes sold out at 2 stores as side effect of work-from-home

My friend of 15 years died on Christmas Eve and the media knew before I did. In fact, my friends and I found out because a reporter reached out seeking confirmation he was dead so that they could run a story. At that point we had no idea what the fuck they were talking about. Couldn’t believe it. We all tried to call Ravi, hoping it was some cruel joke or misunderstanding.

Now I’m seeing an awful lot of detail from the police in the media about my friend’s death, even before investigations are complete and findings submitted to the state coroner.

Pannir Selvam Pranthaman was executed in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and laid to rest yesterday, on World Day Against the Death Penalty.

A couple of days before his execution, his sister Sangkari said he had a message for me. “Pannir said you’re like a lion,” she told me with a smile. “The way you talk even when you get in trouble with the government.” The day before, I’d printed out the newsletter I wrote about his book launch, alongside a few news articles and statements, for him. He’d asked for them; he was curious about the media coverage about him and his book. Sangkari said the prison allowed him everything else, but not my newsletter.

There’s a common pain and anger that follows every execution. It comes from disgust at how the authorities behave, from a deep sense of injustice, from the knowledge that the only reason these people are dead is because others with more power and money and opportunity judged them from up high and decided they could be discarded. None of these executions disrupted the drug trade; none of them made Singaporeans safer. Yet we’re forced to swallow the propaganda the state churns out to make us believe that some humans deserved to be sacrificed.

For people like Pannir, like Datch, like Syed and Masoud and Roslan—who I’ve known, whose families I’ve befriended for many years—there’s an additional layer of grief and loss. During his final family visit on his last day on earth last November, Roslan told his sister to send his regards and thank me for 10 years of solidarity and support. I am so sorry that, throughout those 10 years, there was so little I could do for him.

PENALTIES FOR ABUSERS

The new penalties were announced in a press release by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Home Affairs on Thursday.

At present, those caught vaping are fined S$300 if they are under 18 years old, and S$500 if 18 and above. This is regardless of whether it is their first or subsequent offence.

From Sep 1, first-time offenders under 18 will face an increased fine of S$500, while those 18 and above will be fined S$700. A second offence will require the individual to undergo a three-month rehabilitation programme, consisting of six sessions. Failure to complete the programme will result in prosecution.

For a third or subsequent offence, the offender will be prosecuted in court under the Tobacco (Control of Advertisements and Sale) Act (TCASA) and may be fined up to S$2,000.

TJC feels great relief at the granting of clemency to Tristan Tan Yi Rui, a 33-year-old Singaporean who was sentenced to death in 2023. This good news is all the more remarkable because it is the first time clemency has been granted to a death row prisoner since 1998.

The South China Morning Post was the first to report that the Cabinet of Singapore had directed President Tharman Shanmugaratnam to grant clemency in this case. Tristan’s death sentence will now be commuted to life imprisonment. In response to media enquiries, the Ministry of Home Affairs said that the Cabinet decided to advise that President Tharman grant clemency so as to “reduce the disparity in… outcomes” between Tristan’s case and that of another individual arrested as part of the same operation and tried separately. Beyond reading up on Tristan’s case, we are also trying to find out more about the details of this other individual’s case, so as to better understand what prompted the Cabinet’s decision. So far, the government has not identified who this other person is. We hope to be able to share further reflections at a later date.

After almost thirty years of rejected clemency appeals by three different Presidents—and more than 250 executions—we are encouraged to see a Cabinet, led by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, exercise its power to show mercy to a young man on death row. We are greatly relieved that, today, there is one less person in Changi Prison that the state intends to kill.

Tristan will no longer have to fear facing the gallows, but there are more than 40 people still on death row, all of them convicted of drug offences. The last execution—the tenth this year—took place just two days ago, on 13 August 2025. Now that they have broken the 27-year streak of clemency rejections, we hope that the Cabinet will continue to direct President Tharman to commute more death sentences. We also reiterate our call for an immediate moratorium on executions and the use of the death penalty.