Wilson's Blogmanac: Leunig's silent protest over Van Nguyen

Australia is and always has been quite distinguished for its cartoonists, and Michael Leunig is one of the best-known living practitioners of the art.

Below is his protest over the callous execution in Singapore of the young Australian, Van Nguyen:

"There are no cartoons this morning as I make my protest to the Singapore government. It's as futile as marching in the street but, as far as I'm concerned, every bit as necessary. Following is what I'm sending to each member of the Singapore government and every Singaporean ambassador/high commissioner in the world for whom I can find an email address - sans Leunig.

"Beneath a wafer thin veneer of modernity, civilisation and sophistication the government of Singapore is again revealed as a stunted, brutal oligarchy with scant regard for the rule of law.

"The government claims its barbaric policy of state sanctioned murder is in place as a deterrent to the commission of certain crimes yet, after fifteen years, executions are still occurring at the rate of one every nine days. In the social laboratory that is the United States of America, the only place in the world where valid comparisons can be made of the deterrent value of capital punishment, irrefutable evidence shows there is no such deterrent value.

"And even if the evidence was to the contrary Singapore reduces its own judiciary to the role of rubber stamp. With mandatory sentences the government refuses to allow the Bench to take account of individual circumstances, reducing defendants to a mendicant role after the judicial process has concluded and ensuring the power of life and death remains with the oligarchy.

"This judicial sham operates against a background of Singapore maintaining strong diplomatic and economic relations with region's largest manufacturer and distributor of illicit drugs, the Burmese military junta. The hypocrisy is self evident.

"As Singapore stands cheek by jowl with its great and powerful friends, the US and China, the brutal death of one more young man will be just another indication, if they notice at all, that the little trading state has as scant regard for human life as they do. Singapore can try to cloak its brutality in a shroud of law and order but that is as bogus as its rule of law and its democracy."