As a staunch op­po­nent of death penalty, WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh, in an Open Let­ter to Datuk Liew Vui Keong -Law Min­is­ter of Malaysia, con­grat­u­lates the Is­lamic Re­pub­lic of Malaysia for abol­ish­ing death penalty from next week. The Dr Ma­hathir Mo­hamad-led cab­i­net de­serves praise for this far-reach­ing move which would have Sikhs in Malaysia and else­where pleased as Sikhs have al­ways up­held the right to life.

As is his forte, WSN Ed­i­tor writes an Open Let­ter to Malaysian Law Min­is­ter as the coun­try has taken the far-reach­ing step of abol­ish­ing the death penalty and an­nulling the anti-peo­ple colo­nial sedi­tion laws from the statute. Here is the Open Let­ter:

Dear Yang Berhor­mat Datuk Liew Vui Keong MP

Wa­he­guru Ji Ka Khalsa Wa­he­guru Ji Ki Fateh!

Greet­ings in the Name of God, the Light of every soul.

I am sure that my com­mu­nity, of which large num­bers live in your coun­try, in­clud­ing your cab­i­net col­league Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Gob­ind Singh Deo, are please about the news that your coun­try has an­nounced a mora­to­rium on death penalty to all the 1267 on the death row in Malaysia and that next week your coun­try would abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment at all times for all crimes from the statue of the Is­lamic Re­pub­lic of Malaysia. Your vet­eran Prime Min­is­ter -Dr Ma­hathir Mo­hamad de­serves spe­cial ku­dos for tak­ing lead in pass­ing this his­toric leg­is­la­tion.

The Sikh peo­ple are com­mit­ted to the right to life for all. The Sikh peo­ple have demon­strated their com­mit­ment to abo­li­tion of death penalty for all crimes at all times. It has been proved be­yond doubt that the killing of one hu­man be­ing by an­other per­son or state is wrong and that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is not a de­ter­rent to crime and serves only the pur­pose of re­venge.

The Sikh eth­i­cal ap­proach of com­pas­sion, for­give­ness and scope for re­for­ma­tion of one’s life is a pre­req­ui­site for any pro­gres­sive civil so­ci­ety. Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh, the Sikh ruler, in his 40 year reign (1799-1839) did not use the death penalty, even in cases, where he was the sub­ject of at­tack.

“All death penalty would be abol­ished. Full Stop.”

Datuk Liew Vui Keong, Min­is­ter for Law, Malaysia

Your force­ful state­ment sends the point home, “All death penalty would be abol­ished. Full Stop.” I am par­tic­u­larly happy that it is hap­pen­ing in your coun­try as you join Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan who have ef­fec­tively abol­ished the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, whereas oth­ers like In­dia, who live in the name of Gandhi, but con­tinue to hand out death penalty in cases all and sundry.

Un­doubt­edly, we are all liv­ing in dif­fi­cult times. A heinous crime against a woman or a fam­ily, a pub­lic crime in which there are mass killings, im­me­di­ately prompt so­ci­ety to do a re­think on the death penalty with the vic­tim fam­i­lies up­set and the so­ci­ety at large bay­ing for the blood of the per­pe­tra­tors in re­venge. Even courts, like in In­dia, use this per­verted logic by de­liv­er­ing judge­ments not based on the law but on the ba­sis of the col­lec­tive con­science of the so­ci­ety at large.

It pleases me, just as it has Amnesty In­ter­na­tional, Hu­man Rights Watch and oth­ers that you have con­sid­ered all these ar­gu­ments friv­o­lous and as your Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Mul­ti­me­dia Min­is­ter Gob­ind Singh Deo said, “The gov­ern­ment of Malaysia has de­cided to scrap cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment be­cause the Malaysian pub­lic has shown they were against the death penalty.” This is in­deed a trib­ute not only to your gov­ern­ment which had made an elec­tion promise to scrap the death penalty, but also the peo­ple of your coun­try who have com­mended the move.

“The gov­ern­ment of Malaysia has de­cided to scrap cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment be­cause the Malaysian pub­lic has shown they were against the death penalty.”

Gob­ind Singh Deo, Min­is­ter for Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Mul­ti­me­dia, Malaysia

When N. Suren­dran of Lawyers for Lib­erty hu­man rights group in Malaysia has wel­comed the de­ci­sion of the Malaysian gov­ern­ment said, “it is a force for moral good, and an ex­am­ple for the re­gion and the world”, he was ab­solutely right. I am glad that there are un­likely to be any strong voices against the de­ci­sion con­sid­er­ing the re­lief that this is go­ing to give to so many peo­ple.

While this is a grand move, the plan to re­scind the Sedi­tion Act is ic­ing on the cake. Your friend and col­league Gob­ind Singh Deo has said that, “the Sedi­tion Act has been used in the past to si­lence dis­senters and crit­ics. This too has to go as the cab­i­net has al­ready taken this de­ci­sion.” This is a huge break from the colo­nial past as “the world’s largest democ­racy -In­dia” still con­tin­ues to use this ex­ten­sively against politi­cians, au­thors and ac­tivists, more than what the colo­nial mas­ters of yore did.

“While this is a grand move, the plan to re­scind the Sedi­tion Act is ic­ing on the cake. This is a huge break from the colo­nial past as “the world’s largest democ­racy -In­dia” still con­tin­ues to use this ex­ten­sively against politi­cians, au­thors and ac­tivists, more than what the colo­nial mas­ters of yore did.”

May I take the op­por­tu­nity to in­form you that in In­dia the mi­nori­ties, the poor and the un­der­priv­i­leged are the ones against whom death penalty is awarded whereas for the rich and fa­mous there is trav­esty of jus­tice in the name of ul­tra-na­tion­al­ism and the case be­ing “rarest of rare.”

In­dia is yet to rat­ify the Sec­ond Op­tional Pro­to­col to the In­ter­na­tional Covenant on Civil and Po­lit­i­cal Rights and sup­port ini­tia­tives in this di­rec­tion by the United Na­tions.

Amnesty In­ter­na­tional has doc­u­mented that only 23 coun­tries of the world re­tain the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Of these, your neigh­bours Sin­ga­pore, Thai­land and In­done­sia need to fol­low suit and make South­east Asia, free of the death penalty.

It is my ap­peal to the Sikhs liv­ing in these coun­tries to par­tic­i­pate in all civil so­ci­ety ac­tion to even­tu­ally have a death-penalty free world.

May you and your gov­ern­ment re­ceive the bless­ings of those on the death row, their fam­i­lies and also from other coun­tries who live in hope that their coun­tries too would re­spect hu­man­i­tar­ian con­cerns and abol­ish death penalty.

 If you like our sto­ries, do fol­low WSN on Face­book.

Let the call from Malaysia re­ver­ber­ate in coun­tries, where cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment ex­ists, “Hang the Noose!”

With kind re­gards and prayers!

Jag­mo­han Singh
Ed­i­tor, The World Sikh News