10 December 2003 :

Ignoring appeals from human rights groups, Vietnam sentenced at least 100 people to death up to December 8 and the country's get-tough-on-crime policy showed no signs of letting up.
Over the same period, at least 62 people were executed by firing squad, mainly for murder and drug trafficking, double the 2002 figure. The figures were based on information compiled by AFP from officials and state media reports.
No official statistics were available. In 1999, Vietnam reduced the number of crimes eligible for the death penalty from 44 to 29, but the 2003 figures showed it had not taken any real steps towards joining the abolitionist club.
"This is a very effective measure," Le The Tiem, deputy minister of public security said in September of the death penalty. "Once drug-related crimes are eradicated, we might consider changing our policy with lesser penalties."
The government had also ordered harsh punishments, including the death penalty, to be handed down in serious corruption cases, purportedly in a bid to restore its own tarnished image following a number of high-profile graft cases involving state officials.
The use of the death penalty in Vietnam was among a host of other human rights concerns for the country expressed by rights groups and Western governments.
The European Union, in particular, had asked Hanoi "to stop executions for a while and take the time to study whether executions have any effects in the society," a Hanoi-based diplomat said... In 1999 Prime Minister Phan Van Khai expressed reservations over the use of the firing squad and there was talk of lethal injections being used instead but no action was ultimately taken.
Executions are carried out at special sites at dawn. The victim is blindfolded, and tied to a stake.
Spectators are welcome to attend the grisly spectacle, but the victim's family is rarely informed. Instead they are ordered to come and recover personal belongings two or three days later. The body of the executed is only made available to their families for formal funerals three years later.