from malaysia, nagaenthran dharmalingam, who was caught with the equivalent of three tablespoonfuls of heroin as he entered singapore. he has an iq of 69 medical experts say that represents intellectual disability. and after more than a decade on death row, you hanged him. does that seem proportionate and compassionate to you? you ve got your facts wrong. the courts found that he had the working of a criminal mind and he made a deliberate, purposeful, calibrated, calculated decision, to make money, to bring the drugs in. psychiatrists called. he was mentally impaired, minister. he was mentally impaired. psychiatrist called by the defence. he had an iq of 69. psychiatrist called by the defence agreed and confirmed that he was not intellectually disabled. and last year, when his final appeal was dismissed, at the same time, in october 2021, the us executed two men whose lawyers
as a legal monstrosity with totalitarian leanings? you say your government isn t about control. what on earth are you doing passing this fica legislation? well, you might want to look at the legislation. the reporters without borders, i m. it s an interesting organisation. they rank us, you know, in the annual rankings below. last year, they ranked us 160 out of 180, below gambia. guinea, afghanistan, philippines, south sudan, myanmar. south sudan has been described as having one of the most serious refugee crises. myanmar had a coup. i don t see journalists queuing up to go to south sudan, philippines, and myanmar, as opposed to singapore. take a young female bbc journalist, do you think she will feel safer or freer to report from any of these countries compared to singapore? i dismiss reporters without borders completely nonsensical. let s quickly, because we don t have much time left,
and our. what is the justification. let s move on now. let s move on from drugs to another aspect of your social policy. yes. and that is the fact that in singapore, homosexuality is still defined as a criminal act. now that s not saving lives. so what on earth is the justification for that? the position in singapore is that people engaging in gay sex will not be prosecuted. even though there is this old piece of law which makes gay sex amongst males an offence, the attorney general has confirmed that position and the supreme court has said that the government s position has legal force. why are we taking this approach? because a significant proportion of our population, the middle ground, as it were, don t want that law repealed. attitudes are shifting somewhat, but still governments cannot. singapore government cannot ignore those views. so we have arrived at this sort of messy compromise the last 15 years, and we have taken this path because these issues are difficult. they are not
is seeking to contain china, constrain china s growth. so the tense relations continue this way. more bifurcation of technology and supply chains, or worse. but singapore, like many other countries in this region, will want to maintain good relations with both washington and beijing. that may not be possible, and it may be that it isn t just about us china, it s about authoritarians and democratic systems increasingly polarised around the world. you ve made a stand on ukraine. you re one of the few asian countries that has imposed sanctions on russia. your pm called the putin invasion an unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country. that suggests to me that right now, in terms of values and worldview, you are actually closer to washington than you are to beijing. we also opposed the us invasion in grenada. so it s a matter of principle. it s not choosing one over the other. as a small country with a very keen eye towards survival,
now, as home affairs minister, are you worried about the evidence presented of routine systemic discrimination, particularly against malay people in singapore, to a certain extent indian people as well? again, you know, there are various assumptions that there is routine discrimination and that this is systematic. you are not producing any evidence to this effect. as i said, the economist magazine and others have produced evidence which gets to the very heart of this problem. it shows that when people, when people look for housing, to rent housing, it is quite plain. and many people have done this, quite plain that in many places, ethnic chinese people 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,