You are reading a special (emergency!) issue of We, The Citizens. Please share this widely.
There'll be a rally at Hong Lim Park tomorrow night for Pannir and the prisoners who’ve already been hanged by the state. I’ll be there, and I hope you will be too. Bring your family, bring your friends—we need as many people as we can get in the park.
📆 19 February 2025
📍 Hong Lim Park
🕖 7pm–9:30pm
If you're not in Singapore or are unable to make it to Hong Lim Park in person, please join us via livestream on either The Online Citizen's Facebook page or TJC's YouTube page. It would be great to also have large numbers on the livestream to demonstrate how many people care about Pannir and the fight to abolish the death penalty in Singapore.
Read an excerpt from a letter Pannir wrote in 2019
"I have a goal. I hope to live on and I have a passion and direction in what I can do, if I ever do live. I've shared whatever I can here, and if you’re reading this, I’m eternally thankful.
This is just a small part of what I know, I believe I can be a better person. I have done my best to change in these five years and I will do the same in the coming days.
I value my life so much now and I want to be there for my family too, as well as atone for sins to them, society and my country.
If given a chance, I’d do what I can to save a life. In my defence, I did not murder anyone, I did not take anyone’s life, but I do admit my mistakes and I sincerely apologise as I did not know it was heroin, and I wish for a chance to heal and fix the mess that I have caused in my ignorance and foolishness.
I sincerely want to right my wrongs, not just because I am guilty, but I think every one of us has a moral responsibility to live their lives, the best they can, in the service of others.
Taking my life away can never justify my involvement in this, but giving it back to me with a second chance, would justify, I believe, the life I would live from then on."
A trip to the Law Society
Yesterday I wrote about Pannir, execution notices and time, which continues to slip away from us. Today Pannir’s family continue to fight, doing all that they can to save him.
This afternoon Pannir’s siblings, Sangkari and Isaac, went to the Law Society of Singapore to deliver a statement to convey their family's unhappiness with the Law Society’s silence over Pannir’s imminent execution. Pannir has a serious complaint lodged with the Law Society against his former lawyer; as a material witness in this complaint, his family believe that he has the right to see the matter through. If Pannir is executed, it’s likely that the complaint will be dismissed since there will no longer be a main witness.
In their statement, Pannir's family highlights that two other death row prisoners with similar complaints against the same lawyer have already been executed. “The Law Society has similarly remained silent over those cases,” they said. “A lawyer who has been repeatedly accused of misconduct will be allowed to avoid accountability and sanction because the State is executing the complainants. It is in the public interest to establish if Mr. Ong has in fact harmed his clients and if so, to prevent him from further victimising other vulnerable persons seeking legal recourse.”
Read the statement from Pannir's family in full
We are the family of Pannir Selvam. Pannir faces execution on 20 February 2025. His impending execution is causing us unimaginable grief and stress.
Our distress is further compounded by the fact that our brother is facing execution despite his ongoing complaint to the Law Society of Singapore about the conduct of Mr. Ong Ying Ping, who represented Pannir in his criminal review motion (“CM 32”) late last year.
CM 32 pertained to the disclosures in the Prison Correspondence Case, where the Court ultimately found (in the civil matter) that the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Singapore Prison Services had acted unlawfully in forwarding the correspondence of 13 death row prisoners to the Attorney-General Chambers.
On 29 July 2024, three days before the hearing of CM 32, Mr. Ong visited Pannir in prison and pressured him into signing a ‘Notice to Act in Person’ stating that he would be representing himself in the legal proceeding. However, Ong later told the Court that Pannir (and other prisoners) had decided to discharge him of their own accord because they wanted to act in person to make further arguments.
We had no knowledge of Mr. Ong’s ploy. In fact, we paid fees to Mr. Ong even on the day he wrote to Court to seek a discharge from representing Pannir. We made three payments to Mr. Ong between 27 and 29 July 2024. On 5pm of 29 July 2024, Mr. Ong sent us a message to acknowledge that payment had been received.
Between late 2023 and July 2024, we paid Mr. Ong a total of $7,000—over 23,000 Malaysian ringgit. We are not a wealthy family and these fees have been a huge burden. We had to borrow money and fundraise to pay Pannir’s court fees. We paid Mr. Ong despite these difficulties because we were desperate to give Pannir the best chance he could have to live.
Mr. Ong deceived Pannir, our family, and the Court. In September 2024, we, with Pannir, sought the help of another lawyer to bring a Law Society Complaint against Mr. Ong. It was filed on 26 October 2024.
We understand that, on 13 January 2025, the Council of the Law Society referred the Complaint to the Chairman of Inquiry Committee by the Council of the Law Society, and a two-man Review Committee was formed to review the Complaint.
Pannir is the complainant and material witness in this complaint. Given the nature of this complaint, if Pannir is killed, the complaint will almost certainly be dismissed because the main witness will be unavailable. We believe that Pannir has a right to see his complaint through and to seek redress. Despite this, the Law Society has remained silent over Pannir’s execution.
We understand that at least two other death row prisoners who had ongoing complaints against Mr. Ong over similar issues have been executed. The Law Society has similarly remained silent over those cases. A lawyer who has been repeatedly accused of misconduct will be allowed to avoid accountability and sanction because the State is executing the complainants. It is in the public interest to establish if Mr. Ong has in fact harmed his clients and if so, to prevent him from further victimising other vulnerable persons seeking legal recourse.
When will there be justice for Pannir and our family?
Sangkari Pranthaman
Sister
On behalf of Pannir’s family
As the family's representative, Sangkari was met by two members of the Law Society's communications department. She wanted to meet the head of the department that oversees complaints but this request was refused. The Law Society's representatives essentially told Sangkari that they'd only respond if required by the court; the Law Society won't be taking any action otherwise. They didn't confirm that Pannir's complaint would still proceed even if he was executed, nor did they commit to replying to the family's statement. They even refused to tell Sangkari who her family's statement would be handed over to for review. The general message appeared to be: Please go away, because there's nothing we can or want to do about this. (You can read more in this story by The Online Citizen.)
"I do not know why Singapore is acting in this way... when a person has [an] ongoing legal case, they still schedule an execution," a visibly disappointed Sangkari said after her meeting with the Law Society. "I'm not in the position to advise anything about legal matters because I believe I don't have that kind of knowledge but at least I could understand... they should address the matter first before coming out with this execution notice and because Pannir is the material witness in this case, he should be given the opportunity to address the case."
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