Capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

is a legal penalty in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

for a variety of crimes. The

Human Rights Measurement Initiative The Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI) is a non-profit organisation primarily housed in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 2016 by Anne-Marie Brook, K. Chad Clay, and Susan Randolph: experts in human rights and economics. These ...

gives Vietnam a score of 4.4 out of 10 on the right to freedom from the death penalty, based on responses from human rights experts in the country. These experts have also identified that certain groups, such as migrants and/or immigrants, people with low social or economic status, and refugees or asylum seekers are particularly at risk of having their right to freedom from the death penalty violated. In 2020, these experts additionally identified "those involved in land disputes, particularly those involved with the Dong Tam Village attack" and "detainees or prisoners, particularly those convicted for drug offences or robberies" as especially vulnerable to death penalty executions.

Characteristics

Twenty-nine articles in the

Penal Code A criminal code (or penal code) is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might ...

allow the death penalty as an optional punishment. Executions were once carried out by a

firing squad Execution by firing squad, in the past sometimes called fusillading (from the French ''fusil'', rifle), is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war. Some reasons for its use are that firearms are us ...

of seven

police officer A police officer (also called a policeman and, less commonly, a policewoman) is a warranted law employee of a police force. In most countries, "police officer" is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. In some, the use of the ...

s, where the prisoners were blindfolded and tied to stakes. The firing squad was replaced by

lethal injection Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium solution) for the express purpose of causing rapid death. The main application for this procedure is capital puni ...

in November 2011 after the Law on Execution of Criminal Judgments (in article 59(1)) was passed by the

National Assembly of Vietnam The National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Quốc hội nước Cộng hoà xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam) is the national legislature of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The Constitution of Vietnam recognizes the a ...

. The drugs used to execute prisoners are produced domestically. The first execution conducted by lethal injection was of Nguyen Anh Tuan, convicted of murdering gas station employee Bui Thi Nguyet on August 6, 2013. In November 2015, a revision of the Penal Code that severely curtailed the death penalty was passed. Under the new regulations, which took effect on July 1, 2016, the death penalty was abolished for seven crimes: surrendering to the enemy, opposing order, destruction of projects of national security importance, robbery, drug possession, drug appropriation, and the production and trade of fake food. In addition, those 75 or older are exempt, and officials convicted of corruption charges can be spared if they pay back at least 75% of the profits they illicitly obtained. The death penalty cannot be applied to juvenile offenders, pregnant women, and women nursing children under 36 months old at the time the crime was committed or being tried. These cases are commuted to

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

. Between August 6, 2013 and June 30, 2016, Vietnam executed 429 people. 1,134 people were sentenced to death between July 2011 and June 2016. The number of individuals on

death row Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting Capital punishment, execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of ...

is not known.

Crimes carrying capital punishment in Vietnam

According to the Penal Code, the following chapters contain the relevant articles that apply to capital punishment.

References

Penal Code No. 100/2015/QH13

Sources

capitalpunishmentuk
{{Asia in topic, Capital punishment in

Murder in Vietnam Law of Vietnam Human rights abuses in Vietnam

Characteristics

Crimes carrying capital punishment in Vietnam

See also

References

Sources