The small city-state of Singapore has been in the news several times in recent weeks due to a number of articles highlighting increasingly harsh and frequent punishments for wrongdoing, which may seem at odds with its global reputation for peace, security, cleanliness and a lack of corruption.
These include the death penalty for importing cannabis, potential prison for public mischief and new rules on who can be whipped with a rattan cane – and potentially raise questions about where effective governance ends and an increasingly authoritarian legal system begins.
Throughout Southeast Asia, Singapore has long been considered an economic powerhouse and is also one of the richest countries in the world, along with Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, in terms of GDP per capita based on purchasing power parity. It is also consistently ranked among the safest countries in the world due to its low crime rate and low risk of terrorism, and is known as one of the least corrupt countries in the world.
As such, Singapore often presents a contrast to some of its Southeast Asian neighbors, with other countries in the region known for rampant corruption, authoritarian and military crackdowns on civilians, ongoing civil conflict, and political and economic instability.
Yet recent events may raise an uncomfortable question: Is Singapore’s rule of law becoming even more draconian, or is a legal iron fist needed to maintain order in the city-state that has always prioritized discipline and social control?
The first disturbing incident occurred on April 16, when Singaporean national Omar Yacob Bamadhaj was hanged for transporting just over a kilo of cannabis into the country in 2018, after being sentenced to the death penalty in 2021.
In Singapore, the death penalty is only applicable for the most serious crimes, including drug trafficking under the Misuse of Drugs Act, although Bamadhaj claimed he did not know there were drugs in the car he was driving from Malaysia to Singapore after a trip to visit family.
He also alleged that he was threatened into confessing by police officers who allegedly threw a pen at him and would hang him and his father if he did not admit to the crime.
Despite several appeals, including one for a presidential pardon, Bamadhaj’s sentence was upheld, making him the eighth person hanged in Singapore this year alone, and despite desperate pleas from groups such as Human Rights Watch.
In 2025, Singapore, which has earned the unfortunate nickname “Disneyland with the death penalty”, executed 17 people – three of them in one week – the highest number of death row inmates executed since 2003.
Following Bamadhaj’s execution, on April 24 came news that a French teenager had been charged with “mischief” and “public nuisance” after a video went viral on social media showing him licking a straw from an IJooz orange juice vending machine and then returning it.
The case arose when IJooz filed a police report after seeing the viral video, and Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien, 18, will return to court in May to answer the case. If convicted, he faces a prison sentence of up to two years for licking the straw.
Finally, on May 6, it was reported that male students in Singapore schools found guilty of harassment could be subject to three strokes of the cane as a “last resort”, under new rules being discussed in Parliament.
According to Education Minister Desmond Lee, caning will only be considered appropriate “if all other measures are inadequate, taking into account the seriousness of the offense”.
He added that caning would only be carried out if approved by the school principal, and that students would be beaten by an authorized teacher.
“Schools will consider factors such as the maturity of the student and whether caning will help them learn from their mistake and understand the seriousness of what they have done,” he continued.
Under Singapore’s Criminal Procedure Code, caning of women is prohibited, so the new rules only apply to male students aged 9 and above. Hit children will receive counseling after the punishment, Lee added.
Taken individually, the above cases do not appear to be related, but put together in the space of just three weeks, they potentially paint a picture of a state increasingly comfortable with the use of harsh sanctions to maintain order and the rule of law.
Some, however, may say that it has always been this way.
Caning, for example, although now extended to children as young as nine years old, is nothing new in Singapore’s legal system, and adult offenders can be caned if they are under 50 for offenses such as overstaying, fraud and theft. Violent punishment was first introduced into Singapore’s penal code by the British during the colonial period, although the practice has now been abolished across the UK.
Besides caning, Singapore is also famous for banning chewing gum, the sale of which has been banned since 1992, as well as vaping, littering, graffiti and jaywalking.
For some, this legal iron fist may be a necessary compromise to preserve Singapore’s reputation as uncorrupted, peaceful and clean. For others, the recent wave of hangings, arrests and new laws on corporal punishment can be seen as an intensification of a legal system already known to be one of the strictest in the world.