Indonesia is about to execute a bunch of people, including two Australians, which is big news in Australia. They use the firing squad approach, and in the executions they carried out in January, using some 20 people firing at once - some with blanks and some with real, so the people never know if they really killed someone or not. Even still - the death is by no means quick., the fastest death by firing squad was six minutes. Others took far longer to bleed out or have internal organ failure.
It's especially big news in Australia at the moment because the two Australians (charge: drug trafficking in 2005) to be executed any day now are generally regarded by all as fully remorseful and fully reformed - even by the people executing them. Which begs the question - what's the point of a prison system based on reform if you just kill people even if they actually do reform? The two in question are said to be so well regarded in the prison they're in that other inmates have volunteered to stand in for them an be executed in their place.
The real pity here is that they're going to be executed not because of their crimes but because Indonesia's government wants to show its people how they can stand up to international pressure (something the majority of Indonesians want to see them do). So basically, they're going to be killed for political purposes, not because of their crime. That's no reason to execute someone.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not in favour of drug traffickers - but their "victims" all chose to take drugs, too.Compare that to someone who actively was involved in the Bali terrorist bombings a few years ago - I'm talking physically carried the actual bombs to the actual night club where 202 people were killed and many more mained - not just someone peripherally involved - and that guy has been released from prison in Indonesia already. But foreign drug traffickers? No - they get killed.