The International Harm Reduction Association has made a submission on the Universal Periodic Review of Singapore at the UN Human Rights Council. The Council is the highest political body in the UN system dealing specifically with human rights. The submission draws attention to the country’s policies of imposing the mandatory death penalty on drug offenders, sentencing people who use drugs to corporal punishment and its resistance to evidence-based harm reduction interventions. (PDF, 115 KB)
Unfortunately, human rights violations committed in the name of drug control are common in Singapore, including breaches of the rights to life, health and the right to be free from torture and other cruel inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. Furthermore, the government has yet to implement evidence-based interventions that are proven to reduce the transmission of blood-borne viruses and bacterial infections.
The Universal Periodic Review is a peer-review process, under the auspices of the United Nations Human Rights Council, in which countries review one another’s human rights records. Every country gets reviewed once every four years. Civil society is invited to provide submissions of information which are considered during the review. Singapore’s review will take place in May 2011.
The full submission is available for download. (PDF, 115 KB)