IF West Australian maritime worker Bruce Griffiths is caned for swearing on a flight bound for Singapore, he's in for a punishment so brutal it is classed by Amnesty International as torture.

The cane used in Singapore is a 1.2 metre rattan rod which is just over a centimetre in thickness.



It is applied with such ferocity that victims' buttocks are completely stripped of skin, leaving them raw and mutilated. One recent recipient of the cane described the pain as "beyond excruciating".



When many Australians think of the cane, we recall the punishment we or our parents copped way back when corporal punishment was a standard procedure in Australian schools.



That was a tickle with a feather duster compared to what goes on in Singapore.



One widely circulated online video taken in the courtyard of a Singapore prison shows a man strapped to a trestle with his buttocks bared. The first two strokes visibly redden his skin. The third and fourth open deep cuts.



By the fifth stroke, the victim cries out in agony as his wounds spread to almost the entire surface of his buttocks.



You can only imagine the scene after the maximum 24 strokes.



Caning in Singapore can be administered for a wide range of offenses, from violent crime to trivial administrative offenses like overstaying a tourist visa for more than 90 days.



Singapore also has to what it calls "outrage of modesty crimes", and the laws can apply to incidents which occur onboard planes registered in Singapore.



There is no recent precedent of an Australian receiving the cane in Singapore, although a Swiss national received three strokes of the cane in 2010 for vandalising a Singapore train.



Mr Griffiths is currently receiving assistance from the Australian High Commission. He will be hoping, quite literally, that they save his backside.

Originally published asWhen it comes to brutality, Singapore canes it