Amnesty International says death penalty reforms leave Singapore isolated in Southeast Asia News
Chensiyuan., CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Amnesty International says death penalty reforms leave Singapore isolated in Southeast Asia

Amnesty International on Thursday said a growing number of Southeast Asian states are cutting back on the death penalty, creating new momentum towards abolition in a region long known for its strong support for capital punishment. The statement came ahead of the World Day Against the Death Penalty on October 10, alongside a new briefing examining progress towards abolition and continued resistance to reform across the region.

According to the briefing, executions have become far less common across the 11 ASEAN member states over the past 20 years. Of the 11 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Cambodia, the Philippines and Timor-Leste have abolished the death penalty in law. Cambodia and Timor-Leste explicitly prohibit capital punishment in their constitutions. The Philippines, by contrast, has abolished capital punishment by statute, but Article III, Section 19(1) of its Constitution permits Congress to reinstate it for compelling reasons involving heinous crimes. Indonesia marked 10 years without an execution this year, and Malaysia and Thailand are expected to reach the same milestone in 2027 and 2028. Brunei Darussalam and Laos have not carried out executions in decades. Only Myanmar, Singapore and Viet Nam have recorded executions in the past five years. Joshua Ericsson, executive director of Amnesty International Malaysia said that “this shift underscores the growing isolation of states that continue to carry out executions.”

Amnesty International credits Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Viet Nam with leading the reforms. Malaysia’s 2023 abolition of the mandatory death penalty helped reduce the number of people on death row from more than 1,200 to around 100 by the end of 2025. Indonesia’s new Criminal Code, which took effect in January 2026, treats the death penalty as a “special punishment” of last resort, and Viet Nam is expected reduce its capital offences from 18 to 4 in just over a year.

Singapore, by contrast, is the only ASEAN country known to carry out executions regularly while openly opposing reform. According to Amnesty International, as of September 30, it had carried out 19 executions this year, all for drug-related offenses, already surpassing the 17 recorded in 2025. Amnesty International also criticized Singapore for targeting anti-death-penalty activists, including Jolovan Wham. A joint statement by human rights groups said 14 activists and human rights defenders had been charged in recent weeks over peaceful assemblies, including vigils opposing the death penalty and activities in solidarity with Palestinians. In Myanmar, the military resumed executions in 2022 after more than three decades and expanded the scope of the death penalty in 2025 and 2026.

Amnesty International is calling on governments of ASEAN member states that still retain the death penalty to establish or maintain an official moratorium on executions and work towards full abolition. “Abolition across the region is possible if we continue to stand strong against the isolated few,” Ericsson said.

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Harlan Fiske Stone born

On October 11, 1872, Harlan Fiske Stone, future Columbia Law School dean (1910-1924), US Attorney General under President Calvin Coolidge (1924-25), US Supreme Court Associate Justice (1925-41) and Chief Justice (1941-46), was born in Chesterfield, New Hampshire.

As part of a political compromise, Stone became the first Supreme Court nominee to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, testifying for five hours on January 28, 1925.