Singapore – Masoud Rahimi Mehrzad's father was in a remote part of Iran when he received the news that he had been afraid of for a long time.
His son was to be hanged in Singapore's Changi Prison.
Suffering from ill health and with only a week's notice until his execution at dawn on November 29, he was unable to make the arduous journey to see his son in person one last time, according to reports.
Instead, the last contact between father and son came via a long-distance phone call.
Despite a final legal challenge, Masoud was hanged on the last Friday of November, more than 14 years after he was first arrested for drug offences.
Masoud, 35, was the ninth person to be hanged in Singapore this year.
“With four executions in November alone, the Singapore government is relentlessly continuing to use the death penalty harshly,” said Bryony Lau, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch.
Anti-death penalty campaign groups believe there are around 50 prisoners currently on death row in Singapore.
Despite prominent human rights groups and United Nations experts, Singapore claims that capital punishment has been “an effective deterrent” against drug traffickers and ensures that the city ” as one of the safest places in the world”.
A group of UN experts said in a joint statement last month that Singapore should “move away from reliance on criminal law and adopt a human rights-based approach to drug use and drug use disorders “.
Stories about the plight of death row inmates usually come from activists, who work tirelessly to fight for the rights of those facing the ultimate punishment.
The recent wave of executions has now shaken them.
“It's a nightmare,” says Kokila Annamalai, a lead anti-death penalty activist with the Transformative Justice Collective (TJC).
Her work has brought her into close contact with many death row inmates.
“They're more than just people we're campaigning for. They are also our friends, they feel like our sisters. It has been very difficult for us personally,” Annamalai told Al Jazeera.
'Losing another son, he couldn't take it'
Like almost all Singapore inmates on death row, Masoud was convicted of drug offences.
Born in Singapore to an Iranian father and a Singaporean mother, he had spent his childhood between Iran and Dubai.
At the age of 17, he returned to Singapore to complete his compulsory national service and it was at this time in his life that he was arrested on drug charges.
In May 2010, at the age of 20, he went to meet a Malaysian man at a petrol station in central Singapore. Masoud took a package from the man, before driving away. He was soon stopped by the police. They searched the package and other bags they found in the car.
In total, officers found more than 31 grams of diamorphine, also known as heroin, and 77 grams of methamphetamine.
Masoud was arrested for possession of drugs for human trafficking.
Under Singapore's strict laws, anyone caught carrying more than 15 grams of heroin can face the death penalty.
Masoud told police he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. He also blamed an illegal moneylending syndicate for sending the drugs to plan it.
His defense failed in court and he was sentenced to death in 2015.
Masoud's sister, Mahnaz, released an open letter shortly before her brother was hanged last month. She mentioned the pain that the death sentence caused their father.
“My father was completely heartbroken, and he never recovered. One of my brothers died when he was 7 years old, from appendicitis … losing another son, he could not accept it,” she wrote.
Masoud had fought hard to appeal his conviction, but his numerous legal challenges, as well as an appeal for clemency to Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, failed.
Before his execution, Masoud's sister described how her brother spent his time on death row helping other inmates with their own legal battles.
“He's invested a lot in helping them find peace,” Mahnaz said.
“He feels it is his duty to fight for his life as well as the other life, and he wants everyone on death row to feel the same motivation, to be there for each other,” she said.
'People start to care deeply'
In October, Masoud was one of 13 death row inmates who won a case against the Singapore Prison Service and the Attorney-General's Chambers, after they were deemed to have acted illegally by publishing and demanding private letters of prisoners.
The court also found that the prisoners' right to privacy had been violated.
Masoud was also expected to represent a group of 31 prisoners in a constitutional challenge against a new law related to the appeals process in death penalty cases. A hearing in that legal challenge is still scheduled for late January 2025, a date that is now too late for Masoud.
Singapore's Central Bureau of Narcotics said the fact that Masoud was executed before the upcoming high court hearing was “not relevant to his conviction or sentence”.
After a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, executions have increased in recent years in the Southeast Asian financial hub.
According to news reports, 25 prisoners have been executed in Singapore since 2022, with the authorities showing little sign of reducing their approach to capital punishment for drug traffickers.
Anti-death penalty activists in a city continue to express their anger at the government's actions, using social media to amplify the personal stories of death row inmates.
However, they have started receiving “correction orders” from government authorities, which are issued under Singapore's controversial fake news law.
The TJC Annamalai group has been targeted by the law – the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) – over several posts related to death row cases.
The campaign group was asked to include a “correction notice” with their original posts and also share an online link to the government's website, for further clarification.
“It's always a story about a death row inmate who gets POFMA,” Annamalai said.
Describing these stories of individual prisoners as “the most powerful”, Annamalai says the group has been targeted specifically because “people are starting to care deeply and want take action when they read them”.
'Trying to silence us'
Rights groups have hit out at the authorities' recent targeting of activist groups.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the continued fear and intimidation that the authorities have created around anti-death penalty operations in Singapore and demand that the harassment of protesters cease immediately ,” seven anti-death penalty groups said in a joint statement. in October.
Elizabeth Wood, Head of the Capital Punishment Justice Project, which is based in Melbourne, Australia, and one of the seven people who signed the letter, said that those who are fighting to end sending to death sent them as “glorious” drug traffickers.
“They announced that they would create a day of remembrance for the victims of drugs. That's another way of accusing activists of glorifying and trying to humanize drug traffickers,” said Wood.
Human Rights Watch's Lau said the “Singapore government should not use its brutal and overbroad laws to try to silence anti-death penalty activists”.
Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs declined an interview request from Al Jazeera.
In a recent statement, the Ministry of Home Affairs said it will not “target, silence and harass groups and individuals simply for speaking out against the death penalty”.
Annamalai of TJC said she will continue her activities, despite POFMA's rectification order for a post on her personal Facebook page.
Although she faced the threat of a fine or even a prison sentence, Annamalai said she will not make amends.
“They are strongly and desperately trying to harass us, but they will not succeed,” she said.
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