Nguyen Tuong Van, is currently on death row in Singapore awaiting execution by hanging.

Van is a 25 year-old of Vietnamese descent, who was born in a Thai refugee camp after his mother fled her homeland. They emigrated to Australia when both Van and his twin brother were just a few months old. His mother settled in Melbourne's south-east suburbs and by all accounts Van was an ordinary kid growing up in an ordinary suburb.

Van was arrested in December 2002 at Changi airport, Singapore, with almost 400 grams of heroin strapped to his body. Van was attempting to smuggle heroin from Vietnam to Australia.

He was charged with trafficking and in March 2004, sentenced to death by judge Kan Ting Chui.

Van had spent 15 months awaiting this verdict in a jail where inmates are shackled for up to 22 hours a day. The inmates' diet is also extremely poor and they receive little or no medical attention.

The 23-year-old claimed he tried to smuggle heroin out of Vietnam to pay-off his twin brother's heavy debts. If Nguyen Tuong Van's brother had made mistakes in life, they were nothing compared to the mistake he made when he agreed to become responsible for his twin brother.

According to Amnesty International, Singapore has executed 400 prisoners since 1991, giving it the highest per capita execution rate in the world. If Van loses his appeal, he will be the first Australian to be executed in more than a decade.

I urge you to appeal against the death penalty given to Nguyen Tuong Van, and request that the Australian Government do everything in its power to have his sentence commuted to a lessor one and in doing so, support Van's appeal for clemency.

Write to:

The High Commissioner:
Singapore Embassy
17 Forster Crescent
Yarralumla, ACT 2600.

and to

H.E Alexander Downer
Australian Foreign Minister
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Email: A.Downer.MP@aph.gov.au


The death penalty is an abhorrent, repressive, punishment that defies the philosophy of enlightened civilisations.


Kay Danes
Advocate
Foreign Prisoner Support Services
http://www.foreignprisoners.com

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