Human rights groups: Caning is torture

HUMAN rights groups say caning in Singapore is a violation of international law and breaches the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

They insist that although Singapore has not ratified the convention, the prohibition on torture and cruel inhuman treatment is universal, called a ‘jus cogens’ norm, which means no domestic law can contradict it.

In 2015, the International Commission of Jurists, a human rights group, condemned the Singapore Court of Appeal for declining to say caning was unlawful. The court also said caning did not ‘breach the high threshold of severity and brutality that is required for it to be regarded as torture’.

Caning in Singapore is mandatory in dozens of offences including attempted murder and rape. Only medically fit men aged 16 to 50 are caned.

Offenders sentenced to death are not caned.