My heart goes out to the family of Akmal Shaikh as he faces the death sentence for smuggling 4 kg of heroin into China. It must be terrible to think of a loved one being put to death under hideous circumstances and a long way from home. In this case the justification appears to be that he had a mental dificiency - Bi - Polarism - and that allowed him to not understand what he was doing.
Through the outrage we need to remember a number of things:-
1 Drugs are an evil of society and damage peoples lives as well as turning big parts of society into depraved people who then debase themselves further. Drugs have to be stopped at all costs and the traffikers need to know that the punishments are real.
2 We must never send out the message to the traffikers that they can continue with their evil trade so long as thay find disadvantaged people as their mules.
3 The families and support bodies who are so insistent that Akmal was dealt a poor hand should have supported him during his travels. We re told that he was lured by the promise of a singing career. If he was so easily led then he should not have been allowed to be crossing such borders by himself. His so called friends should have recognised the obvious risks and and protected him from them.
