SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore executed an Australian drug trafficker just before dawn on Friday despite repeated pleas by Australia's government for clemency, sending a chill over relations between the long-time allies.
Nguyen Tuong Van, 25, was hanged at the city-state's Changi prison just after 6.00 am (2200 GMT). A minute after the execution, a large church bell in Nguyen's home city of Melbourne tolled 25 times -- once for every year of his life. The hanging follows weeks of campaigning by his lawyers, his family and civil rights groups to stop the execution.
Thousands of people gathered in Australia to pray and mourn for Nguyen in the final 24 hours of his life while Singapore activists moved in pairs overnight to light candles at the prison. Public gatherings of more than four people require a police permit in the tightly-controlled city-state.
Details here from Reuters via thestar.com.

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It is not without reason that LKY insisted that the chinese maintain a numerical majority over the malays and indians because he knew, as it has been for 2000 years, that the chinese are well-trained in turning a blind eye to anything the government does. They don't question evils. They just question how they can negotiate through them - even if this means stepping on everyone else.
The chinese culture trains people into being like the proverbial 3 monkeys. That is why LKY and son brought back the chinese culture in full force, started the chinese elite schools, the speak mandarin campaign, instituted higher chinese, forbade them from substituting other languages for 'their own', allowed a few dedicated chinese channels on tv, allows the chinese to discriminate against all races as and when they please in the job market whilst saying that it is none of their business, saturating the population with china citizens and inviting many of them to become singapore citizens, etc, etc, etc. This way, all potentially influential and 'troublesome' 'races' would be gradually pushed to the underclass or leave the country so that the current emperor Lee Hsien Loong can rule and pass on the reins to the herd to the next and next and next for the next 2000 years.
These things escapes the world's attention while the world is unaware that the basis for such nonsense is chinese culture. Of course, atrocities take place in other non-chinese cultures, but all that shows is that atrocities have a few cultural bases - one of which is the mentioned culture. That is why a Chinese Humanitarian is an oxymoron. Chinese civilisation would not have survived intact and unchanging for 2000 years or so if the emperors had not been successful in instituting a culture of apathy and intellectual and humanitarian docility and myopia. That is why 2000 years later, this poor mate of ours was led to his death while these people just stuffed their faces with fishballs and noodles at their local cafes. The chinese becomes human the less chinese he becomes.
Posted by Ridell | < $MTCommentDate$>
Posted on December 2, 2005 04:08