Click to expand Image Then-acting Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (right) welcomes Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during the 8th Singapore-Australia Annual Leaders' Meeting on June 2, 2023. © 2023 Singapore Press via AP Images Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should urge Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong to halt an execution scheduled on the day of their meeting in Canberra on October 8 for the Australia-Singapore Annual Leaders’ Meeting.Singaporean authorities are planning to execute a 38-year-old Malaysian national, Pannir Selvam Pranthaman, who was convicted in 2017 of trafficking drugs into Singapore. Pannir Selvam’s family was informed on October 3 that his clemency plea had been rejected and that his execution would take place just five days later. Singapore has already executed 11 people in 2025, 9 of them for drug-related offenses. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty.In addition, Singaporean authorities routinely target anti-death penalty activists using media censorship and anti-protest laws to stifle dissent. Singapore’s suppression of critical voices underscores the importance of governments like Australia speaking out on the death penalty and other human rights issues in their public engagements with the city-state.Australia adopted a Strategy for the Abolition of the Death Penalty in 2018, pledging to advance the abolition globally through multilateral and bilateral advocacy. The strategy includes reducing executions for offenses, including drug-related crimes, that do not meet the threshold of “most serious crimes” under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. However, the Australian government has repeatedly failed to publicly raise the issue in annual leaders’ meetings with Singapore, though it is a close partner and global outlier on the issue.Failing to speak out on this occasion, on the very day Pannir Selvam is scheduled to be executed, would highlight a troubling dissonance between the Albanese government’s stated commitment to rooting out the death penalty globally and its actions.During his visit, Albanese should waste no time urging his Singaporean counterpart to halt Pannir Selvam’s execution and impose a moratorium on capital punishment. Australia’s commitment to human rights, including its longstanding opposition to the death penalty, should be made clear and forcefully at the meeting.Quiet diplomacy is unlikely to stop Singapore from sending more people to the gallows.