Members of Amnesty Worldwide maintain a rally to protest in opposition to Japan’s demise penalty in entrance of the nationwide Eating regimen in Tokyo on July 28, 2009. FILE PHOTO/Agence France-Presse
TOKYO — Iwao Hakamada, the world’s longest-serving demise row prisoner who was freed in 2014, will be taught on Thursday if he’ll once more face execution or lastly be acquitted.
The demise penalty has sturdy public assist in Japan, the place scrapping it’s hardly ever mentioned, however additionally it is criticized internationally for the “merciless” method it’s carried out.
Listed here are some issues to know:
80% assist
Japan and the US are the one two members of the Group of Seven industrialized economies to retain the demise penalty.
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There’s overwhelming public assist for the observe: a 2019 Japanese authorities survey discovered that 80 p.c of respondents noticed the demise penalty as “unavoidable”.
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In the identical survey, which had greater than 1,500 members, simply 9 p.c had been in favor of abolishing it.
Of those that supported capital punishment, round 57 p.c mentioned victims’ households “would by no means really feel vindicated” if it had been scrapped.
Dozens on demise row
As of December, 107 prisoners had been ready for his or her demise sentences to be carried out, the Justice Ministry informed AFP. It’s at all times carried out by hanging.
The regulation stipulates that executions have to be carried out inside six months of a finalized verdict.
READ: Japanese demise row inmates sue over ‘merciless’ hanging
In actuality, most inmates are left on tenterhooks in solitary confinement for years — and generally many years — usually taking a extreme toll on their psychological well being.
‘Merciless’ methodology
Hanging has been Japan’s sole execution methodology for round a century-and-a-half.
Convicts are led to the gallows blindfolded, with their toes sure and arms cuffed.
A trapdoor opens beneath them when a number of jail officers every press a button concurrently in an adjoining room.
None is informed which button triggers the lethal mechanism.
Three death-row prisoners sought an injunction in opposition to the hanging methodology in 2022, calling it merciless.
Critics have argued that hanging is liable to botched executions and makes for an extended, agonising demise.
Current executions
No executions had been carried out in Japan in 2023 however there was one in 2022 and three in 2021.
The final hanging, in July 2022, was of Tomohiro Kato, who killed seven folks in 2008 when he rammed a truck into pedestrians in Tokyo’s Akihabara district after which went on a stabbing spree.
The high-profile executions of the guru Shoko Asahara and 12 former members of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult befell in 2018.
Aum Shinrikyo orchestrated the 1995 sarin gasoline assaults on Tokyo’s subway system, killing 13 folks and making hundreds extra in poor health.
A 21-year-old man was reportedly sentenced to demise final week for killing the mother and father of a lady he had a crush on and setting their house on hearth.
‘No warning’
There’s widespread criticism of the system and the federal government’s lack of transparency over the observe.
Inmates are sometimes knowledgeable of their impending demise on the final minute, sometimes within the early morning only a few hours earlier than it occurs.
Some “could also be given no warning in any respect”, rights group Amnesty Worldwide as soon as mentioned in a report.
The psychological ache of not understanding when they are going to be put to demise prompted two prisoners to file a lawsuit in opposition to the late-notice system in 2021, with a verdict reportedly anticipated in April.
No relations are allowed to witness the inmates’ final moments.
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Public discourse on the demise penalty can also be restricted, with activists calling for higher disclosure of knowledge by authorities to stimulate nationwide discussions.
