On Friday April 26th Japan’s Justice Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki ordered execution of two inmates, Katsuji Hamasaki and Yoshihide Miyagi, both detained at Tokyo Detention Center.
This is the second execution under the government led by Liberal Democratic Party which came back to the power in last December, and it has been only two months since the last execution.
The Minister has shown his support for retention of the death penalty on the occasions of press conferences, and actually the last execution was carried out on February 21st, only 57 days after the Minister had taken office. Contrary to the Minister’s remark which stressed ‘careful consideration’ to the execution, it is obvious that the Minister had never given full consideration before singing off the execution warrants.
Moreover, execution of Hamasaki was carried out only sixteen months after his sentence had become finalized in December 2011. In Japan, death row prisoners are severely restricted their contacts with outside world, and even reaching out to a counsel for retrial procedure is difficult for them. Along with the basic problem that no prior notice of execution is given to inmates, the execution clearly deprived the inmate of his right to challenge the legitimacy of execution.
As a universal trend toward abolition is overwhelming, Japan, which retains the death penalty and carries out executions regularly, is now a peculiar country and becoming more and more isolated from the international community. In October 2012, on the occasion of the Second Review of Japan’s human rights situations by Working Group of UN Human Rights Council, as many as 24 countries made recommendations related to the death penalty, including abolition and a moratorium on executions. However, LDP government, which regained the power after the review, rejected all of these recommendations and responded that whether to retain or abolish the death penalty is an issue which should be decided by each country and Japan does not intend to have a national discussion on it. The penalty of death, nonetheless, is the ultimate punishment which violates right to life, the most fundamental human right and whether to retain the penalty or not can never remain a domestic issue. On May 21st and 22nd, Japan will be reviewed by the UN Committee against Torture for the second time and Japan will not be able to avoid further recommendations from the Committee.
Center for Prisoners’ Rights Japan strongly condemns today’s executions and will continue its struggle to achieve a moratorium on executions and ultimate abolition of the death penalty.