Hanging covered

SINGAPORE: Singapore's No.1 daily newspaper gave extensive coverage yesterday to the hanging of Nguyen Tuong Van.

The Straits Times ran five artiles on the execution of the Aussie drug trafficker, analysing the controversy here and the moral issues raised by the death penalty.

The comprehensive treatment stands in stark contract (sic) to the paper's previous cursory, tardy reporting of the case.

One early article ran as a brief. But as the furore over the execution mounted, more space was given ending in yesterday's treatment.

The main news article ran across the top of page three - entitled "Drug gamble ends with 6am hanging", with two colour photos, one of Nguyen's twin Khoa outside Changi.

"Such was the controversy over the case that the question of whether they (Nguyen and his mother Kim) could touch each other became a matter of national attention (in Australia), meriting the intervention of Australian and Singaporean leaders," it said.

Singapore's domestic media is not free in the standard Western sense, but has close ties to the government and broadly supports its policies.

Two articles on page 42 in the world section examined the reaction in Australia, especially from politicians, and covered other Australians held abroad who may face execution.

A comment piece in the opinion section was by the foreign editor.

It noted some Australian media had portrayed Singapore as an authoritarian, repressive Orwellian state where people live in fear and the media is cowered into submission.

It said this portrayal was ironic as our media had been free to report the case here with no restrictions.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Sunday, 04 December 2005
Source: Sunday Territorian
Website: http://www.ntnews.com.au
Email: ntnmail@ntn.newsltd.com.au