Though he is provided with a straw mat, Matthew says he prefers to sleep on the concrete floor of his cell in the maximum-security wing of Singapore’s Changi Prison.
“It’s more cooling that way,” says the 41-year-old former schoolteacher, who was sentenced to more than seven years in prison and seven strokes of the cane for selling methamphetamine.
CNN met Matthew, who spoke on condition that his last name be withheld, during an exclusive tour of Changi Prison provided by Singapore authorities as they defended the city-state’s uncompromising position on drugs.
In recent years, dozens of US states and countries ranging from Canada to Portugal have decriminalized marijuana.
But Singapore imposes a mandatory death penalty for people convicted of supplying certain amounts of illicit drugs – 15 grams (half an ounce) of heroin, 30 grams of cocaine, 250 grams of methamphetamine and 500 grams of cannabis.
A 64-year-old man was hanged for drug offenses this week – the fourth person to be hanged so far this year.
The harsh sentencing puts the wealthy city-state in a small club of countries that includes Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia, which execute criminals convicted of drug offenses.
Read the full article at CNN
