Debate Grows Over Japan’s Secretive Death Penalty

Except for the ancient stone Buddha in the entryway and the square on the floor outlined in colorful tape, the wood-paneled room with its mauve carpet could have passed for a nice hotel room. Takashi Kawamura stood inside the square and looked up at the metal ring suspended from the ceiling. He imagined what it would feel like to be moments away from death.

“I felt sad,” said Kawamura, one of nine Japanese lawmakers given a rare glimpse Wednesday of the place where Japan’s death row inmates are hanged. It was the first time in decades that outsiders have been allowed to view the country’s death chambers.

The breaking of that longtime taboo took place as supporters of the death penalty succeeded in stalling consideration of a bill that would place a four-year moratorium on executions pending a government review. The Diet, as the parliament is called, is scheduled to adjourn Monday, and lawmakers have been preoccupied with a controversial Iraq-related security measure.

Japan and the United States are the only two industrialized powers that still impose the death penalty, which has been attacked as “cruel and unusual punishment” by human rights organizations around the world.

Kawamura, a death penalty opponent and member of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, has vowed to renew his push for reform of the criminal justice system when parliament reconvenes later this year.

In addition to the moratorium, the proposed bill would require that the accused be allowed to have a lawyer present during interrogation, and it would strengthen a life sentence to make it a serious alternative to the death penalty.

Under Japan’s penal code, a person sentenced to life can sometimes be set free after 15 to 20 years.

Critics argue that the death penalty is particularly vulnerable to abuse in Japan because of the justice system’s reliance on confessions, the lack of a clear definition of death-penalty offenses and the absence of any public scrutiny of the execution process.

Four prisoners who were convicted of murder and sentenced to death in the 1950s -- but never executed -- were acquitted in the 1980s after they succeeded in getting retrials, according to Amnesty International Japan, a leading critic of the death penalty.

The death-penalty system in Japan operates in total secrecy, and even prisoners are not told when they are scheduled to be executed. People outside the criminal justice system are not allowed to view executions, and families of prisoners are not given notice. It wasn’t until several years ago that the Japanese government agreed to disclose the dates and number of executions. The last two were carried out in September.

Currently, 127 prisoners are on Japan’s death row, according to Amnesty International.

The Council of Europe has threatened to revoke Japan’s observer status unless it suspends executions.

But the Japanese government argues that its criminal justice system is fair and the secrecy is necessary to protect the dignity and privacy of the prisoners.

Tomoko Sasaki, a legislator from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said that descriptions of Japan’s penal system as “barbaric” or “arbitrary” are unjustified and that the public overwhelmingly supports tougher handling of criminals. In a 1999 government survey, 80% of the respondents supported the death penalty.

“Public security and safety of the public is the government’s top priority,” said Sasaki, who was a prosecutor for 15 years before running for office. “Also, victims’ families have a strong feeling to retaliate against the offenders. The government is the only group who can respond to those feelings.”

Sasaki denied that Japanese officials force prisoners to confess. She said the strong pressures in Japanese society to conform and not bring shame upon family or community result in “90% of offenders naturally confessing their crimes.”

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Chizuo Matsumoto, founder of the Aum Supreme Truth cult responsible for the 1995 sarin gas attack that killed 12 people and sickened thousands on the Tokyo subway. Matsumoto has been charged with murder, and the Tokyo District Court is scheduled to rule on his fate in October.

“I know there is a debate over the death penalty, but the culprits involved in the gas attack deserve the death penalty,” said Shizue Takahashi, the wife of a subway officer killed in 1995.

Though its overall crime rate has edged up in recent years, Japan still ranks among the safest countries in the world. In 2001, Japan, which has 127 million people, recorded 1,340 homicides. The United States, with more than double the population, reported 15,586 homicides that year.

But a recent spate of horrendous crimes, including the suspected murder of a 4-year-old boy by a 12-year-old student, has hardened Japanese attitudes, according to Misaki Yagishita, a campaigner with Amnesty International Japan.

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New abolitionism

Information about capital punishment compiled by Amnesty International:

* More than half the world’s countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

* Seventy-six countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes.

* Fifteen countries have abolished the death penalty for all but exceptional crimes such as those in wartime.

* Twenty-one countries retain the death penalty in law but have not carried out an execution for at least 10 years.

* Eighty-three countries retain and use the death penalty, but the number that executes prisoners in any one year is much smaller.

Los Angeles Times