Japan: 129 inmates remain on death row

Japan Today
Tokyo — Japan’s prisons had 129 inmates on death row as of Dec 26, according to a Justice Ministry report.

The ministry said that there were three executions in June and August, while five death-row inmates died of illnesses, including a 92-year-old man, TV Asahi reported Sunday.

A man believed to be the world’s longest-serving death row inmate, Iwao Hakamada, 78, was freed in March after the Shizuoka District Court ordered a fresh trial over the grisly 1966 murder of his boss and the man’s family.

Human rights group Amnesty International has criticized Japan’s use of capital punishment for being “shrouded in secrecy.”

Japan and the United States are the only major industrialised democracies to carry out capital punishment, a practice that has led to repeated protests from European governments and human rights groups.

International advocacy groups say the Japanese system is cruel because death row inmates can wait for their executions for many years in solitary confinement and are only told of their impending death a few hours ahead of time.

Japan: NO JUSTICE WITHOUT LIFE 2014 - Justice and Human Rights - Thursday, October 23rd, 2014

NO JUSTICE WITHOUT LIFE 2014

Thursday, October 23^rd, 2014

10:00 am – 12:30 am

House of Representatives

First Members' Office Bldg. 1F - Congress Hall

2-1-2 Nagata-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8981

Justice and Human Rights

The Rule of Law, Justice and Punishment, International Standards:

The World and Japan in Dialogue

Tentative Program

Opening Greetings

Alberto Quattrucci Secretary General of Peoples and Religions, Community of Sant’Egidio

Jonathan Hatwell CVDeputy Head of Delegation – EU Delegation to Japan

Lorenzo Morini
Minister Counselor of the Embassy of Italy

Introductory Lectures

Mario MarazzitiChairman of the Permanent Commission for Human Rights
to the Italian House of Representatives

Shizuka Kamei

Chairman of the Parliamentary League for the Abolition of Death Penalty 
to the Japanese House of Representatives

VIDEO

Contributions

Mizuho FukushimaMember of the House of Councilors of Japan

Isamu UedaMember of the House of Representatives of Japan

Nobuto HosakaMayor of Setagawa

Yuji Ogawara
Secretary General of JFBA's Committee on Abolition of the Death Penalty

Naoko Shimaya
Lawyer of Forum ‘90, to obtain the ratification
of the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR by the Japanese Government

Andrea OrtolaniSecretary General of AIGDC Italian-Japanese Association for Comparative Law 

Hideki WakabayashiSecretary General of Amnesty International Japan

Martin KoellingEast Asian correspondent of Handelsblatt, Germany

Pio d’Emilia (TBC)
journalist and writer, correspondent of Sky Tg24, Italy

Witnesses

Mitsuhide Yashiro
Lawyer of the Fukuoka case

Iwao Hakamadainnocent, world’s longest-held 
death row inmate - 46 years - freed on March 27^th, 2014

Hideko HakamadaHakamada case

Japan: "No plans to abolish capital punishment"

Daiji World
The Japanese government does not believe that the death penalty is in need of any immediate reform, the country's new Justice Minister Midori Matsushima said.

Matsushima, who took up the portfolio in early September, reaffirmed her stance on capital punishment in Japan, one of 22 countries in the world that still mandate capital punishment for certain crimes.

"I believe that the death penalty is necessary to punish certain very serious crimes. We have to take into account the emotional reaction of the families as well as the general public," Matsushima said at a press conference Friday.

At least 5.6 % of Japanese citizens said the death penalty was "unavoidable if the circumstances demand it", while 5.7 % "totally oppose it", according to the most recent poll conducted on the topic, which the minister cited.

The latest 2 executions in the country took place Aug 29, bringing the total number of state-mandated deaths to 11 since the Liberal Democratic Party regained control of the government in 2012.

The execution by hanging of the 2 prisoners took place 5 days before Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a reshuffle of his cabinet, which saw Matsushima replacing Sadakazu Tanigaki in the justice ministry.

Amnesty International has repeatedly criticised Japan's implementation of the death sentence "without legal guarantees", referring to cases such as the execution of prisoners suffering from mental illnesses.

Iwao Hakamada Freed From Death Row In Japan After Record 48 Years

AP

Tokio — A Japanese court has decided to release a man on death row for more than 30 years in a high-profile murder case based on new DNA evidence.

The Shizuoka District Court on Thursday suspended the death sentence for 78-year-old Iwao Hakamada and ordered him released after 48 years behind bars. Guinness World Records lists him the longest-serving death row inmate. The top court sentenced him to death in 1980.

The court says DNA analysis obtained by his lawyers suggests investigators fabricated evidence. It also ordered a retrial.

The ruling underscores Japan's much criticized closed interrogations that rely heavily on self-confession.

Hakamada, a professional boxer, was convicted of killing a company manager and his family and setting fire to their central Japan home, where he was a live-in employee.

Japan - 2 inmates hanged, bringing number of executions to 5 under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

Japan Today

TOKYO —Japan said Friday it hanged two death-row inmates, in the first executions since a trio of convicted killers died in the gallows two months ago and drawing immediate protest from human rights groups.

Justice Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki told reporters that Katsuji Hamasaki, 64, and Yoshihide Miyagi, 56, two members of a crime syndicate, were executed for the shooting of two rival gangsters at a restaurant in Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, in 2005.

The executions bring to five the number of death-row inmates hanged since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s conservative government swept to power in landslide December elections.

Japan now has 134 inmates on its death row.

Amnesty International Japan, the Japanese branch of the global rights group, protested Friday.

“We strongly condemn the five executions conducted since the launch of the new government, which goes against calls by the international community and indicates the government’s intention to pave the way for mass executions,” it said in a statement.

Tokyo did not execute any condemned inmates in 2011, the first full year in nearly two decades without an execution amid muted debate on the rights and wrongs of a policy that enjoys wide public support.

But in March last year, Tokyo resumed its use of capital punishment with an unapologetic government minister signing death warrants for three multiple murderers.

Apart from the United States, Japan is the only major industrialised democracy to carry out capital punishment, a practice that has led to repeated protests from European governments and human rights groups.
International advocacy groups say the system is cruel because death row inmates can wait for their executions for many years in solitary confinement and are only told of their impending death a few hours ahead of time.

British survey: Only 44% of Japanese 'definitely' support death penalty

The Asahi Shimbun

Saul Lehrfreund, co-founder
of the Death Penalty Project
 (Kazuo Yamamoto)

A British-based NGO has taken issue with the Japanese government's contention that 85 percent of the population support the death penalty.

The Death Penalty Project, a human rights group seeking to abolish capital punishment around the world, released a report March 12 of its own findings on the issue.

It said only 44 percent of Japanese are strongly in favor of the death penalty. Executions are carried out by hanging in Japan.

The DPP conducted an online survey of 20,769 Japanese men and women between 2008 and 2010.

The respondents were aged 20 to 49 and chosen at random. Their names were registered on a database of a Japanese research company commissioned by the group.

According to the survey, 44 percent of respondents said the death penalty "should definitely be kept" and 35 percent said it "should probably be kept."

One percent of the respondents said death penalty "should definitely be abolished" and 3 percent said it "should probably be abolished."

An opinion poll carried out by the Japanese government in 2009 found a support rate of 85.6 percent for the death penalty. The survey covered 3,000 men and women aged 20 or older and received about 2,000 responses.

The high support rate has often been cited by justice ministers and other officials.

"From the viewpoint of public sentiment, the death penalty is supported," said Justice Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, who authorized three executions in February.

They were the first hangings carried out since the administration led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was formed in December.

But the report by the Death Penalty Project said the questions in the government survey are biased.

The government survey asks respondents to choose from among three options: "The death penalty should be abolished under all circumstances," "The death penalty is unavoidable in some cases" and "I don’t know/ Difficult to say."

The report said those who chose the second alternative include people who support the death penalty only passively.

Lawyer Saul Lehrfreund, one of the founders of the Death Penalty Project, said the results of surveys would be different if Japanese citizens were fully apprised of the capital punishment issue.

Executions in Japan are carried out in great secrecy.

The DPP was set up in 1992 and is partly funded by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the equivalent of a foreign ministry.

Britain abolished the death penalty years ago.

By TAKAAKI NISHIYAMA/ Staff Writer

Tokyo - Pena di morte: Dura protesta a ministro giustizia all'indomani tre impiccagioni

ANSA

La camera delle esecuzioni in un carcere di Tokyo. 

Japan - Tokio - La Lega parlamentare giapponese per l'abolizione della pena di morte ha presentato oggi una dura protesta al ministro della Giusitizia, Sadakazu Tanigaki, all' indomani della sua decisione di firmare il decreto di esecuzione per impiccagione di tre condannati a morte. Shizuka Kamei, leader della Lega che ha 200 iscritti circa tra deputati e senatori di quasi tutti i partiti, ha esortato Tanigaki a 'informare attivamente l'opinione pubblica sul trend mondiale verso l'abolizione' della pena capitale.