and i would say that. i wouldn t quite put it as political control and social control. 0k. but the model. let s dig into your particular remit. you re home affairs minister, you have been for some time, as well as being law minister. singapore is very well known around the world for its. ..well, many would say draconian criminal code, and particularly when it comes to drugs, narcotics, and the bringing of drugs into singapore. you have a mandatory death penalty for that particular crime. do you have any doubts at all that that is the right policy? i don t have any doubts. capital punishment is one aspect of a whole series of measures that we have to deal with drug abuse problem. it s imposed on drug traffickers and it s imposed because there is clear evidence that it s a serious deterrent for would be drug traffickers.
are favoured and it s impossible for indian or malay people to rent in certain neighbourhoods. when it comes to the workplace, often, jobs are advertised which say mandarin essential when it is quite plain that mandarin actually isn t essential, but it s a way of ensuring that ethnic chinese people get the job. that happens. you live in singapore. you know it happens. let me explain to you. let me tell you, first of all, no one will deny that racism exists in singapore, just like it exists in most other societies which are multiracial. the question is how systemic it is and how much does it happen? and if you want an extended discussion on that, i m happy to do it. but my own experience as a minority in singapore, and the experience of many others is, on the whole, compared with many other societies, it s much less in singapore. and, you know, this thing about housing is interesting. 93% of singaporeans live in their own housing. so what you re talking about are foreigners who are seek
30 years later, today, there are more drugs around the region. there are. singapore is wealthier. afghanistan and myanmar are among the largest producers of drugs in the world. we are a logistics centre. we would be completely swamped. the undoc. unodc said that, you know, this place is swimming in meth and a record haul of one billion meth tablets were seized in southeast asia. yeah. you keep painting. in that situation. you keep painting this apocalyptic vision of what singapore might face. but surely, in the end, you are going to be challenged by the international community on the standards that you set in yourjudicial system. let me ask you which is better. you look at the netherlands the chief of the largest police union talks about the netherlands being a narco state with a parallel economy
and last year, when his final appeal was dismissed, at the same time, in october 2021, the us executed two men whose lawyers argued that they were similarly intellectually disabled. they had similar iqs same range. somewhere between 69. 64 and 72, 63 and 95. the courts, the us supreme court in one instance, upheld the executions. the men knew what they were doing for those reasons. now i don t see the bbc. the thing is, it s about reputation. it s about your presentation of singapore to the world, if i may say so. the un human rights experts on the death penalty in may 2022, the un panel said that the executions of persons with intellectual disabilities for drugs related offences represent a violation of the right to life and the right to be free from torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. they amount to, quote, unlawful killings. is that the way you want to present singapore to the world? mr sackur, this depends
housing in singapore. so, you know, people get their facts confused and mixed up. well, i suppose the biggest test of all of this, if i may say so, the biggest test of all of this would be what happens at the very top. now, the current prime minister has just made it plain who his successor is going to be. it s going to be lawrence wong, the current finance minister. that will mean that the four leaders of independent singapore in the modern era have all been ethnic chinese. you re a very senior minister yourself, you perhaps could have aspired to the top job. isn t the reality that you, with your indian heritage, are never going to be able to be prime minister of singapore? and that is a great shame, is it not? leaving me aside, i don t think it is accurate to say an indian cannot be a prime minister, or a malay cannot be a prime minister. how many non white prime ministers have there been in the united kingdom? so let s get real. race does matter in politics.