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SINGAPORE'S Prisons Department has drawn a veil of silence over the impending execution of convicted Australian drug trafficker Van Tuong Nguyen.
Today it rebuffed inquiries about how it handles final arrangements for death row inmates.
Its refusal to detail standard practices for executions in the city-state echoed a decision midweek from the Government, which offered no new response to a complaint filed with the UN by local anti-death penalty activists.
The controversial case has also received scant attention in Singapore's print and broadcast media, which has strong links to the Government and is broadly supportive of its policies.
Nguyen, 25, was arrested carrying almost 400 grams of heroin at Singapore's Changi airport while in transit from Cambodia to Australia in 2002.
All pleas for clemency have been rejected, and the chances of a reprieve appear very slim.
Nguyen's lead lawyer in Australia, Lex Lasry, said he expected that Nguyen would be hanged in "three or four weeks", although activists here had incorrectly feared that he could be put to death as soon as today.
Singapore's Prisons Department refused to answer today whether death row inmates such as Nguyen were offered a final meal, who attended executions, and how many prisoners remained on death row.
The department can oversee the execution of as many as 50 inmates a year.
Human rights group Amnesty International has said the city-state probably executes more prisoners than any other country worldwide relative to its size.
According to official figures, 340 people were hanged in Singapore between 1991 and 2000.
Nguyen's case has not received much media coverage locally, and what reporting there has been has sometimes been out of date.
The Straits Times, the main English-language daily, reported on Wednesday about a rare gathering of anti-death penalty activists that happened on Monday. The item was run as a brief.
There has, however, been a handful of letters to the press from both Singaporeans and Australians.
Jonathan Ariel from NSW wrote to the newspaper last month that "countless Australians have disgraced themselves attacking Singapore" over the case.
Writing to Today, a local tabloid, Jacqueline Tan, said this week the Australian's case was "tragic", but she did not urge clemency.
A comment piece in today's edition of The Straits Times offered no debate about the merits of capital punishment, but argued that opponents of the practice needed to defend child killers and terrorists to be consistent and credible.
SINGAPORE'S Prisons Department has drawn a veil of silence over the impending execution of convicted Australian drug trafficker Van Tuong Nguyen.
Today it rebuffed inquiries about how it handles final arrangements for death row inmates.
Its refusal to detail standard practices for executions in the city-state echoed a decision midweek from the Government, which offered no new response to a complaint filed with the UN by local anti-death penalty activists.
The controversial case has also received scant attention in Singapore's print and broadcast media, which has strong links to the Government and is broadly supportive of its policies.
Nguyen, 25, was arrested carrying almost 400 grams of heroin at Singapore's Changi airport while in transit from Cambodia to Australia in 2002.
All pleas for clemency have been rejected, and the chances of a reprieve appear very slim.
Nguyen's lead lawyer in Australia, Lex Lasry, said he expected that Nguyen would be hanged in "three or four weeks", although activists here had incorrectly feared that he could be put to death as soon as today.
Singapore's Prisons Department refused to answer today whether death row inmates such as Nguyen were offered a final meal, who attended executions, and how many prisoners remained on death row.
The department can oversee the execution of as many as 50 inmates a year.
Human rights group Amnesty International has said the city-state probably executes more prisoners than any other country worldwide relative to its size.
According to official figures, 340 people were hanged in Singapore between 1991 and 2000.
Nguyen's case has not received much media coverage locally, and what reporting there has been has sometimes been out of date.
The Straits Times, the main English-language daily, reported on Wednesday about a rare gathering of anti-death penalty activists that happened on Monday. The item was run as a brief.
There has, however, been a handful of letters to the press from both Singaporeans and Australians.
Jonathan Ariel from NSW wrote to the newspaper last month that "countless Australians have disgraced themselves attacking Singapore" over the case.
Writing to Today, a local tabloid, Jacqueline Tan, said this week the Australian's case was "tragic", but she did not urge clemency.
A comment piece in today's edition of The Straits Times offered no debate about the merits of capital punishment, but argued that opponents of the practice needed to defend child killers and terrorists to be consistent and credible.
