The sad story of Van Nguyen
Debate is raging in Australia about the horrible fate awaiting one of our countrymen in Singapore this week.
Van Nguyen, a 25 year old Aussie boy is awaiting the death penalty in a Singapore jail after being convicted of heroin smuggling, and is due to be hanged this Friday 2nd December at 0900 EST.
I watched his mother on television, coming out of the jail, begging to be able to ‘hug’ her son before he dies on Friday. She has only been able to see him this week for 1/2 hour a day with a glass wall seperating them. This is the first time she has been able to visit him since his arrest in Singapore three years ago.
Despite the efforts of his defence team, the Australian government and a huge groundswell of support here in Australia, the execution as I write, is still going ahead.
As I watched Van’s distrught mother on television and listened during the week to the varying views on talk back radio about his fate, I couldn’t help but feel deeply saddened that a young life was going to be wasted as a punishment for a single crime. I don’t dispute the terrible effects of herion on young lives and understood the views of parents I heard talking about the deaths of their children due to herion use, however I can’t understand how killing a young man will have any impact on the ‘Mr Big’s” who import heroin…………they are not being punished, and to them Van is just a ‘packhorse’ and is easy to replace.
So as I hug my beautiful son who celebrates his 21st birthday on Friday, I will feel sad about another mother who is having her son taken away from her without even being granted the dignity of hugging him before he faces the gallows.
Maybe we should all take a minute to think and refelect on Friday 2nd December, as Van’s short life is ended.
Maybe we should be thinking about our kids, our brothers and sisters, the people we love. Maybe we should be thinking about mistakes we have made in our lives and maybe we should spare a thought for a lone mother for whom Christmas 2005 holds absolutely no joy.