While Think Centre has done a good job in lobbying against the death penalty, and the recent formation of the informal group anti-death penalty committee are heartening signs of a growing movement, there is clearly a need for a more structured organization to handle the various aspects in the fight to abolish the death penalty.

This will primarily mean identifying short, mid, and long term goals supported by clear strategies. How should networks be built and supported with other NGOs and other professionals? How should the educational aspects against the death penalty be carried out in our society? What are the views of politicians or political parties with regards to this issue and their contribution to the dialogue and movement?

The picture is not a rosy one considering the constraints and challenges activists will face in an authoritarian environment, let alone register itself as a society legally.

On the other hand, Ngyuen’s hanging has created a tremendous amount of international publicity as North Carolina, Kenneth Lee Boyd, another death inmate at the United States carried out its 1000th execution on the same day vied for the same media attention.

As international media spotlight fades away, activists need to follow up with "behind the scenes" work in lobbying against the death penalty.

This means that anti-capital punishment activists in Singapore will need to do more research applicable within the local context.

The Think Centre Human Rights forum handout revealed that those who were hanged from 1993 – 2003 were mainly economically less well-off, held manual jobs and lowly educated. This implies that activists need to highlight that it is those who are socially disadvantaged that mostly gets hanged. Activists might also want to lobby the government to dispel the secrecy surrounding the profiles of those sentenced to death and the logistics in carrying out the execution.

All these facts are important in revealing the biases that may be inherent in the death penalty. As an example, according to the National Coalition To Abolish the Death Penalty in the United States, there is clearly a racial prejudice with people of color comprising 43% of total executions since 1976, while comprising only around 25% of the population.

The handout also revealed that drugs related offences form the bulk of those sentenced to death which ties in with the misuse of drugs act that spells out the mandatory death penalty. Research needs to be done on drugs use and prevalence in Singapore. As an example, the Singapore government’s claim that the amount of drugs that Ngyuen carried amounts to 26,000 shots needs to be verified.

While there are obviously harmful effects associated with drugs use, to put them into drug rehabiliation centers under the management of the Singapore Prison Service which categorized them as prisoners is simply wrong.

In an ideal liberal state, the government has no right to determine what one does to their own bodies (which however should not apply to youths and kids as they are often impressionable or unable to make informed mature choices). The key emphasis hence should be the education on the harmful effects of drug addiction but not making criminals out of users.

Certain countries, such as UK, has considered the legalisation of drugs. In the Netherlands, the legalisation of cannabis has not been met with chaos, prevalence of the said drug abuse nor social breakdown that many conservatives have predicted. This leads one to the topic of decriminalizing drugs use. Unfortunately, decriminalization is such a controversial topic that it cannot be considered in Singapore unless more research is done on this area.

This means more drugs related research such as its effects on society and users that will indirectly affect the death penalty movement as those sentenced to death are primarily drug users or traffickers.

On the other hand, the death penalty movement should also follow up on Singapore’s alleged involvement with the drug lords in Myanmar that has close ties with the military junta suppressing the democracy movement in the country. This invariably ties in with the fact that only the mules get caught, not the drug kingpins.