A motley group of human rights campaigners, artists and other members of Singapore's liberal political fringe has been seeking an end to what they see as a medieval form of punishment in a rich, high-tech society like Singapore.

The human rights group Think Centre urged Singaporeans to hold prayers and vigils for 25-year-old Nguyen Tuong Van, who is set to be hanged at dawn on Friday, December 2, barring a last-minute stay of execution after clemency was rejected.

"Today, it's (Nguyen) on the death row for a mistake (for) which he deserves only a jail sentence, not death by hanging. Tomorrow, it could be someone from your family!" Think Centre said in a statement.

"Singapore is one of the very few developed countries which has kept the death penalty for non-violent crimes like drug trafficking," it said.

But it was also critical of Australian Prime Minister John Howard's government, saying its efforts to have Nguyen's death sentence commuted to a jail term were "not forceful enough because of strong trade and business ties between the two countries."

"The message is that business interests can override the life of an individual. Nguyen will be sacrificed on the altar of trade and profit."

The anti-death-penalty movement in Singapore came out in the open earlier this year when a former national sportsman and soldier, Shanmugam Murugesu, was hanged in May for carrying about one kilo (2.2 pounds) of marijuana.

Shut out of the mainsteam media, the campaigners have harnessed the Internet to wage their campaign for what they call a more open and humane society.

In August, they staged a rare protest concert called "Hung At Dawn" in which they denounced Singapore's political system, dominated by founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew's People's Action Party since Singapore became independent from Malaysia in 1965.

The government, defying international criticism and a potential political and economic backlash in Australia, maintains that its own people support the hardline stance on drug trafficking.

The death sentence is mandatory for trafficking in more than 15 grams (half an ounce) of heroin, 30 grams of cocaine and 500 grams of cannabis, as well as for other crimes such as murder, treason, kidnapping and certain firearms offences.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo, in a letter to his counterpart Alexander Downer earlier this month, said Nguyen "imported almost 400 grams of pure heroin, which would have supplied more than 26,000 doses to drug addicts."

Businessman Alex Au, a death penalty opponent and gay rights activist, said "the claim that capital punishment is necessary to keep Singapore drug-free is facile."

He told AFP that other countries with drug abuse prevalence rates as low as Singapore's, such as Finland and Japan, do not execute people for drug crimes, while Thailand, which sometimes does, has a prevalence rate five times higher than Singapore's.

Amnesty International said Singapore possibly has the highest per-capita rate of executions globally with a population of just over four million.

Singapore's Home Affairs Ministry said in response to queries that 66 Singaporeans and 22 foreigners were executed from 2001 to Se\ptember 2005.

Opposition leader Chee Soon Juan said Singapore should give judges some discretion over the imposition of the death penalty, especially in cases where there are strong mitigating factors.

The secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party said Nguyen was a "small-time drug peddler" who should be spared from the death penalty.

Nguyen, who is of Vietnamese origin, was said to have cooperated with Singaporean police and said he was smuggling the drugs to Australia to help pay off debts owed by his twin brother.

Nguyen had no previous convictions and was on his first trip abroad at the age of 22 when he was arrested at Changi airport three years ago while in transit from Cambodia to Australia.

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