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There are some in Australia who believe those who face the death penalty for drug trafficking are not deserving of sympathy. Indeed, there’s a view that the death penalty is too good for traffickers who import hard drugs to peddle to usually, young people who go on to develop hard-to-shake addictions.
Then there are those countries – Indonesia amongst them – for which the death penalty is the panacea, the cure all solution. Execute or threaten to execute the drug traffickers and the drug scourge will peter out is their mantra.
However the evidence is not on the side of the believers in state sanctioned execution, although for Australians Myuram Sukumaran and Andrew Chan that will be of little comfort. Both are likely to face the firing squad for their ill-fated attempt in 2005 to import to Australia some 8 kilograms of heroin through Bali, where they are now on death row in Kerobokan Prison.
Amnesty International has investigated the impact of the death penalty on the incidence of drug crimes in 17 of the 28 nations where it is used or is on the law books. And its conclusion is that “despite the thousands of executions carried out, there is no clear evidence that the death penalty has had any identifiable effect in alleviating drug trafficking and abuse.”
“In the countries which have introduced the death penalty for drug offences and in those which have carried out executions, Amnesty International is aware of no evidence of a decline in trafficking which could be clearly attributed to the threat or use of the death penalty.”
In fact, Amnesty concludes that where the death penalty has been introduced, some in contravention of the United Nations goal of abolishing it, there’s an increased risk that traffickers will kill to avoid capture, the severity of punishment will drive up the price of drugs and perhaps, most worrying that the punishment risks “playing into the hands of organized crime and attracting hardened criminals prepared to face the attendant dangers.”
Although the global tendency is to abolish the death penalty where it has been on the statute books, some nations are refusing to budge despite the evidence.
Although the global tendency is to abolish the death penalty where it has been on the statute books, some nations are refusing to budge despite the evidence.
Iran has executed 2,900 traffickers since the 1979 revolution. According to a 2014 report of the International Narcotics Control Board, an independent, quasi judicial body that seeks to implement the UN’s drug conventions, the route through Iran is still the most heavily traversed to transport heroin from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Europe. There’s been little year on year dent in the movement of opiates and hashish produced in Afghanistan, or of Iranian methamphetamine produced for domestic and international consumption despite the death penalty for recidivist offenders producing or trafficking the drugs.
It’s difficult to ascertain how many traffickers China has executed across its hundreds of provinces, but Amnesty International believes it to be in the hundreds, particularly around its drug producing “Golden Triangle” region. Despite this, advances in air and rail routes in China has meant trafficking in narcotics remains a serious problem according to the Narcotics Control Board.
Whilst China’s consumption of opiates is on the decrease, the use of synthetic drugs is increasing, with a growing number of transnational criminal groups operating in the country. The Narcotics Control Board notes that heroin flows “into China from Burma, Laos, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan…in containerized cargo or fishing vessels to lucrative markets in other parts of Asia and Australia.”
In Malaysia the demand for heroin has been steadily increasing along with the flow of the drug in to the country. An estimated 200 have been executed since 1975 in Malaysia but the Inspector General of Police in Malaysia is of the belief that the death penalty "did not seem to deter traffickers". As far back as 1986, government ministers were sounding the alarm bell, the Deputy Minister for Home Affairs warning that the number of drug traffickers was increasing, rather than decreasing.
Indonesia has carried out comparatively fewer executions for drug crimes than Malaysia due to a four-year moratorium that ended in 2013. Still, 29 people have been put to death since 1999, not all for drug crimes. The Narcotics Board noted that in 2013 “trafficking by West African drug trafficking organizations appeared to increase, while Chinese and Iranian drug trafficking organizations also remained active.”
Drug trafficking is an international trade and as such foreigners are executed in countries where the death penalty applies. But with evidence the penalty can be disproportionately applied, with some foreigners put to death for trafficking smaller quantities than those who escape execution, the risk to diplomatic relations is high.
Perhaps that risk is the only proportionate factor when states that don’t sanction execution face off against those that do.
Monica Attard is a Sydney based freelance journalist and former ABC foreign correspondent and senior broadcaster.
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