Yuen Ye Ming, a London-born, Singapore-based drum and bass DJ was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane on two sets of charges of trafficking, possession, and consumption. On Wednesday, August 19, he was strapped to a large wooden trestle before being caned 24 times in the city-state’s Changi Prison.
The brutal punishment was carried out a week after Yuen lost his final appeal against the sentence. Last night the Foreign Office condemned the decision to lash his bare buttocks with a 4ft rattan cane. Yuen Ye Ming’s sister Elysia said: ‘I am amazed that Ming, who’d been so scared, had the physical and mental capacity to get through 24 strokes in one go. [We were] told Ming was very strong during the caning and afterwards too.
‘Ming knows what he did was wrong and deserved to be punished. We know it’s a different country with different laws and you should respect those laws, but isn’t a 20-year prison sentence punishment enough?’ In a statement, the British High Commission in Singapore said: ‘The UK strongly opposes corporal punishment in all circumstances and condemns its use in this case.’
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He dealt drugs and was deservedly caned. I can’t help thinking that if caning was still legal in British schools when he attended, six strokes on his bare buttocks when he was twelve might have saved him 24 now.