A STUDYGUIDE BY MArguerite O’HARA www.metromagazine.com.au www.theeducationshop.com.au Just Punishment KHOA NGUYEN DEPARTS MELBOURNE Imagine you were offered the ou are a bit nervous but hope Your mother and your friends visit as chance to pay off your debts you’ll get through. Airport secu- often as they can, but as a condemned by carrying drugs into Australia Yrity is suspicious and searches prisoner there is no hugging or touching you. The drugs are found and you are and you are a long way from home. You from an Asian country. The detained, arrested and charged with drug know how worried they are and feel ter- package weighs almost 400 trafficking. At the trial, almost two years rible for causing your friends and family grams, less than a half kilo after your arrest, you are found guilty. The so much pain and shame. bag of sugar. You know there penalty for trafficking fifteen grams of are heavy penalties if you are heroin or more is death. The appeals have all failed including a found with the stuff but decide plea from the Australian government to to take the risk, carefully For more than a year your lawyers go spare your life. You now have only a few through various appeal processes but you days to live before you are hanged. concealing the drugs in your feel increasingly despondent as judges luggage and on you. in this country have no discretion about sentencing for drug smuggling. SCREEN EDUCATION 2 Just Punishment Just Punishment is a one- hour documentary film about the legal processes and the human story that led to the hanging of Van Nguyen in Singapore in December 2005. In telling the story behind the fight to save his life, it asks us ABOVE: BRONNi – reachout caMPAIGN to consider whether this was RIGHT: KIM NGYUEN just punishment. Synopsis vigils and church services across the country. Van Nguyen’s story had cap- On 2 December 2005 Van Nguyen, a tured a nation. 24-year-old Australian, was hanged by the state of Singapore for trafficking 396 Three years earlier, Van was arrested grams of heroin. Van was the first Aus- whilst in transit at Singapore’s Changi tralian to be executed in many years and Airport. He was found with heroin his story flooded news outlets across the strapped to his body and in his hand country. Filmed over two years, Just Pun- luggage. Under Singapore’s strict drug ishment tells the story behind the media laws he automatically faced a mandatory face of Van Nguyen and the remarkable death sentence. Van was not a seasoned Just Punishment tracks the personal journey to try to keep him alive. drug trafficker, he had no prior criminal stories of Van and his inner circle over record and this trip was the first time he the two years from death sentence to In the weeks preceding Van Nguyen’s had left Australia. execution. hanging, the Australian public was gripped by media reports detailing the Van’s friends and family were shocked by Van Nguyen’s story affected everyone unceasing efforts to save the young the news of his arrest, including his twin who came to know it, from those closest drug dealer’s life. Despite the number brother who was, in part, the motivation to him to the highest levels of Australian of states within the Asian region who for Van’s ill-fated trip. His arrest brought politics. It is a story that is guaranteed to practise capital punishment, it had been together an unlikely group who formed remain in our conscience for a while yet. twelve years since an Australian citizen Van’s inner circle as his case moved from faced execution. The media interest was legal process to a diplomatic plea. Curriculum Relevance intense, diplomatic tension ensued and public opinion was split. Just Punishment traces Van’s change Just Punishment will have relevance for from naive, young man to someone who middle and senior secondary students of: Van became the pin-up boy for a number became wise beyond his years, who in of causes: a symbol of the injustice of the face of the hangman’s noose came to - Legal Studies – understanding the Singapore’s mandatory death sentence fearlessly accept his fate and leave peace ways in which legal and human proc- system, a lesson on the impact of drug in the hearts of those who fought to save esses are both intricately connected trafficking and an example of the power him. Told through a mixture of exclusive and subject to inflexible laws. of reformation. At the moment of his interviews, unseen observational footage - Politics – understanding both the execution, thousands of people attended and excerpts from Van’s prison diaries, limits and complexities involved in SCREEN EDUCATION 3 Just Punishment LEFT: KIM & BRONNi – couNTDOWN BEGINS ABOVE: KELLY NG THE LAWYERS - Julian McMahon – Melbourne bar- rister - Lex Lasry – Melbourne Queen’s Counsel (QC) applying diplomatic pressure within a the film, capital punishment and the film- - Joseph Theseira – Van’s Singaporean regional setting. makers’ intentions. lawyer - International Studies – the differences in legal approaches within different People in the film Capital Punishment societies in the same region. - Studies of Society – a study of what THE FAMILY Capital punishment is the state sanc- both divides and connects people - Van Tuong Nguyen – the convicted tioned taking of a person’s life as the from different backgrounds and drug smuggler penalty for committing a crime. cultures. - Kim Nguyen – mother of Van and - Media Studies – constructing a docu- Khoa Here is some background information on mentary with a committed perspec- - Khoa Nguyen – Van’s twin brother the current situation concerning the use tive. (Vietnamese names are often written in of capital punishment in Australasia. It - English – looking at social and politi- the following order: family or surname, comes from a Lowy Institute Report, the cal issues as part of a study of Issues middle name, given name. This is the complete text of which can be accessed and Argument. opposite of names in Australia. Nguyen at: http://www.lowyinstitute.org/ is the most common family name in Viet- Publication.asp?pid=433 The film demonstrates how a legal and nam, as Smith is here) political case can best be understood Below is a summary of the major points. through developing an understanding of THE FRIENDS its human dimensions. The activities in - Kelly Ng, Goldgan Ng, Bronwyn Lew • Seventy-one countries and territories this guide encourage students to look at around the world retain and use the the film from three related perspectives: THE POLITICIANS death penalty. - John Howard – Prime Minister of • Fifteen Asian states retain the death 1. The human stories of the people Australia penalty for ordinary crimes (i.e. crimes involved - Alexander Downer – Foreign Minister other than terrorism). 2. The legal and moral issues of Australia • Singapore executes more people per 3. The process of constructing the - Lee Hsieng Loong – Prime Minister of capita than any other country in the documentary Singapore world: 6.9 executions per one million - Kim Beazley – then leader of the people. Before watching the film, it is suggested Australian Opposition • Five Asian countries have abolished that teachers read through the back- - Rob Hulls – Victorian Attorney- the death penalty over the last decade; ground information about the people in General these include Cambodia, Nepal, Timor- SCREEN EDUCATION 4 Just Punishment MELBOURNE AIRPORT Leste, Bhutan & the Philippines. Two days before Van Nguyen was Open Channel Productions, a screen • Studies have shown the death penalty hanged in Singapore, a Morgan Poll was development and resource centre in is disproportionately imposed on the conducted in Australia and people were Melbourne. poorest, least educated and most asked whether they thought he should Kim Beamish – writer, director and co- vulnerable members of society. be executed for his crime. The results producer of Just Punishment • Van Nguyen was the first Australian showed people to be evenly divided: Shannon Owen – writer, director and co- to be executed in Singapore since producer of Just Punishment independence and the first Australian • Forty-seven per cent said the death executed overseas since 1993. penalty should be carried out In their Directors’ Statement about the • In 1967, Ronald Ryan was the last • Forty-six per cent said the death pen- making of Just Punishment, Beamish and person hanged in Australia. alty should not be carried out Owen acknowledge their committed po- • Australia has abolished the death pen- • Seven per cent were undecided. sition in relation to opposition to capital alty in all states. punishment when they say about the film: • Australian public opinion is divided on The poll also showed that only twenty- the merits of the death penalty. seven per cent of people believed the In some small way we hope it echoes • Australia is a signatory to international penalty for murder should be death, the campaign purpose in which it was covenants that denounce the use of sixty-six per cent said imprisonment originally conceived; and that it chal- capital punishment for all crimes as an should be the penalty and seven per cent lenges audiences to rethink their position issue of human rights. could not say.1 in relation not only to Van’s execution but to the question of capital punishment in In December 2005, what did Austral- The filmmakers all cases. ians think about the application of the death penalty, particularly just days Liz Burke – co-producer of Just Punish- (The complete text of the Directors’ before Van Nguyen’s execution? ment and then Executive Producer of Statement is included later in this guide) SCREEN EDUCATION 5 Just Punishment LEFT: LEX AND JULIAN AT APPEAL Activity 2 Watching the film As suggested earlier in this guide, there are three interrelated stories in this film: (1) the human story, (2) the legal and moral issues and (3) the process involved in constructing the documentary.