Capital punishment in Japan

The capital punishment in Japan legal and is always applied in 2007. It is with the the United States, one of the rare industrialized countries with always applying it.

The capital punishment can be marked for the multiple murders or only one with aggravating circumstances like the Viol or the vol.

Of 1946 with 1993, 766 people were condemned to died and 608 were carried out. After the executions of December 2006, 93 prisoners would always wait to be carried out.

History

The Japan has a long tradition of Capital punishment, mainly in times of Guerre. Although it is occidentalized much, the report/ratio with the Mort is very important in the Japanese company. In certain cases, to give death is a noble way to die.

Since the Japanese penal code was occidentalized under the era Meiji, it authorizes the capital punishment for the crimes " more odieux". The the United States reformed very little the penal code in 1945, when they occupied the country and the capital punishment was maintained.

The country did not know any execution of 1989 with 1993, that is due to the Minister for the Justice of the time, an abolitionist, who refused to sign the Décret S of execution of condemned. But they begin again with the arrival of Masaharu Gotoda, which as a legalist considers that for the credibility of the Japanese legal system, it is necessary to apply the sentences pronounced by the courts.

Of 1990 with 1995, the public opinion was sensitized, mainly by the media, on the question of the abolition of the capital punishment. A public debate even started to be instituted. The attack with the gas Sarin in the subway of Tokyo in 1995 made rock the opinion. Since, she decides openly for the capital punishment and it is for this reason that the Japanese government states to want to maintain the capital punishment.

The country is not signatory of the protocol of the General meeting of the United Nations in favor of the abolition of the capital punishment.

Living conditions of condemned

Waiting within the Couloir of dead the in Japan is in general very long and hard often ten years, sometimes more. This waiting is intended according to the prison authorities to allow the “rest of their heart”. To always preserve this rest, the visits are strictly limited, so much so that parliamentary Japanese, following several tens of requests, were seen refusing the meeting of condemned. Nobuto Hosaka, appointed social democrat and general secretary of the parliamentary League for the abolition of the capital punishment declares that if one revealed the horror of the places of execution, the opinion with respect to the capital punishment would evolve/move .

In the life within the prison, with share with the guards, condemned live isolated, in a cell of four Tatami S is two meters out of four, with a WC, a sink and a darkened window preventing it from contemplating the sky. When it does not have an activity, it must be held sitted on the floor. There is filmed twenty-four hours out of twenty-four, the light remaining lit 9 p.m. to 6:30 of the morning to avoid the suicides.

Because of time of imprisonment and shame which inspires condemned, the family ties are gradually dissolved to be with final, in the majority of the cases, non-existent. It happens that certain people adopt condemned to be able to visit them.

In January 2006, the Nichibenren takes the new initiative to send a questionnaire to the 79 condemned to dead held in seven prisons. Cinquant eight answered, the results were published in Asahi Shimbun , Tokio, April 4th, 2006. With the question That would wish? , the answers were a need for immediate improvement of the daily living conditions, like being able to look at the sky through the windows of the cells, to outside make more sport, to receive on behalf of the families of vegetables or the fruits (the majority are reached of Avitaminose due to the poor meals and without crudenesses), capacity to extinguish the light during the night, to speak with other prisoners, not to more undergo the censure on the correspondences.

Course of the executions

The method of execution used is the Pendaison. On the 59 Prison S in Japan in 2003, 7 are entitled to carry out the executions.

Condemned are informed of their execution approximately two hours front. Indeed, it was the case for one of carried out December 2006: it had been in the district of condemned to died for more than thirty years, the family and the lawyer S are not prevented in advance. The family can then recover the body or ashes. Right before his execution, condemned a monk meets with whom it can speak. He is then brought on the scaffold where one bandages the eyes to him, attaches the hands and passes the cord to the neck.

The opening of the trap door precipitating condemned in the vacuum is actuated by five buttons which the guards must press at the same time. One of these buttons is not active, that is intended for déculpabiliser the guards, like the Balle with white of the firing squads.

Recent judgments and executions

In 2005, Masumi Hayashi, a 43 year old Japanese woman, was condemned to died by hanging by the High court of Ōsaka. She was shown to have poisoned four people with the Arsenic and to have poisoned sixty-three others in 1998. Shoko Asahara, the chief of the sect Supreme Aum Truth, was condemned to died on September 15th, 2006. In November 2005, the Seiken Sugiura announced that by “personal conviction”, it would suspend the capital punishment in Japan the time of its mandate, but to in no case it was not question of abolishing it. According to Kyodo News, four prisoners, of which two septuagénaires are carried out the December 25th 2006. If the ministry for Justice refused, as with accustomed, to reveal the identity of the torture victims, according to Amnesty International, it would be about Yoshimitsu Akiyama, Yoshio Fujinami, Michio Fukuoka and Hiroaki Hidaka. In this accusatory Legal system where the consents override the evidence, the number of condemned to dead having exhausted any recourse increases, passing from 53 in 2000 to 96 in 2006. On Friday, August 23, 2007, three condemned of more than sixty years were hung at dawn.

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