Vietnam to end use of firing squads for executions

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Vietnam to end use of firing squads for executions
The Associated Press
Friday, June 18, 2010; 1:26 AM

HANOI, Vietnam -- Lawmakers voted to end firing squad executions in Vietnam and instead use lethal injections.

State media reported Friday the change will take effect next year after Thursday's vote by the National Assembly.

Vietnam has numerous crimes that are punishable by death, ranging from economic fraud to drug trafficking. About 100 people are executed each year in Vietnam, many for drug-related crimes.

International human rights groups say death by firing squad is barbaric and that Vietnam imposes too many death sentences.


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/18/AR2010061800489.html

[ProudDad]

1. Hey, they're right up with USAmerica...! (n/t)

[Ter]

2. Awesome timing

Someone just died in Utah by firing squad within the hour.

[tclambert]

5. Excellent pairing of stories.

Which country comes off more civilized? Which is more backwards and barbaric? America should be ashamed.

[Bill McBlueState]

12. Maybe not all of America

Only 35 states have a death penalty, and that number always goes down with time, not up.

[Loudmxr]

3. Now let's work on Catholic Philippines.

Maybe all of South East Asia can get rid of the death penalty before the USA will.

[niceypoo]

4. As Utah devolves...

...Vietnam progresses

Kinda pitiful, isnt it?

[Freddie Stubbs]

8. Utah is pro-choice when it come to executions

The guy who was just executed had the choice of firing squad and lethal injection.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

10. I LOVE Great Pyre owners, having a horse dog myself.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. more civilized than Utah.

[burnsei sensei]

7. I don't know about Vietnam,

but I was born in Utah and they are not civilized.
The society of Salt Lake City, and particularly its youth, are conformists who are brutal to those who don't fit their mold.
They want a world in which everyone is thinking the same thing all the time, and even feeling and reacting the same way.
I remember when the stories about ijime came out of Japan.
In Utah, the climate is no different.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. brutal conformists. yikes

I dealt with that (not well) in grade school, and hated it. IN fact, because I went to kristian skule for k-6, I took religion not on faith, but as an enemy. Everything I have learned since, in my 53 yrs of existence have simply confirmed that early dislike and distrust of religion.

Please explain to my dim-witted mind how religious folk can be so pro life when it comes to an unwanted fetus, yet support the death penalty whole-heartedly. I have never heard a decent explanation.

[burnsei sensei]

11. I've heard Mormon lawmakers

try to explain this in terms of innocence.
They believe that all life that is innocent should be preserved.
The life that is guilty should not be preserved.
It's a terrible argument, because, of course, it's not prolife at all.
It's pro-innocence.
Muslims make the same argument concerning killing in conflict-- the innocent shall be preserved, the "guilty" or uninnocent shall either submit or die.
The problem is this-- how do you know if anyone is innocent?
Here both the Mormons, Christian fundamentalists and Muslims seem to be on the same track.
God, according to them, has given them what they believe to be final, perfect and never-misleading truth, and therefore, they are in a peculiar position to know who is guilty and who is innocent, in effect, who to kill and who to let live.
The Mormons, fundies and Muslims who question themselves about this, or grant that their humanity makes them personally fallible and responsible for what they do, are more prone to take a tolerant, liberal stand, one that is in essence, prolife.