IBA – In Memorium: It is with great sadness that we mark the passing of Ravi Madasamy,

Dear IBA friends and colleagues,

It is with great sadness that we mark the passing of Ravi Madasamy, former recipient of the IBA Award for Outstanding Contribution by a Legal Practitioner to Human Rights for his extraordinary dedication to defending human rights, advocating for the decriminalisation of homosexuality and the abolition of the death penalty in the Republic of Singapore. Ravi was also an Officer of the IBA Human Rights Law Committee, part of the Section on Public and Professional Interest (SPPI). Ravi passed away on 24 December 2025.

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Ravi was a founding member of the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network and the Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign’s community group. Over the course of his career, he worked to save more than 40 inmates from death row. The legal challenges brought by Ravi to court between 2010 and 2012 in the case of Yong Vui Kong, a young Malaysian national on death row in Malaysia, led to an indirect moratorium on death penalty cases in the country, which ultimately contributed to the amendment of the law in respect of the mandatory death penalty for certain drug offences. His involvement in the case of Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam, an intellectually-disabled death row inmate, drew worldwide attention. In addition to his efforts in Malaysia and Singapore, Ravi worked as a mentor to lawyers in Pakistan and Tanzania on challenging the death penalty in these countries as part of a scheme organised by the 6th World Congress Against the Death Penalty and the non-governmental organisation, Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM).
Ravi will be remembered as a fearless advocate, a generous mentor and a tireless defender of human rights and the rule of law.

Faithfully yours,
Markus Beham and Marissa Kardon Weber,
Co-Chairs of the Human Rights Law Committee