TOKYO - Three European ambassadors to Japan on Friday called on Tokyo to abolish the practice of capital punishment prior to next week's World and European Day against the Death Penalty.
"As friends, we should share our experience and speak our mind," Viorel Isticioaia-Budura, the European Union's ambassador to Japan, told a press conference in Tokyo. "The EU has, on a number of occasions, called on the Japanese authorities to abolish the death penalty or at least put a moratorium in place and have a debate."
"We regard the abolition of the death penalty as an essential part of the protection of human dignity and, together with our member states, we are therefore working towards a universal abolition," Isticioaia-Budura said. He was joined by Swiss Ambassador Jean-Francois Paroz and Irish Ambassador Anne Barrington.
According to the EU envoy's remarks, only eight countries had abolished the death penalty in 1945, but in 2016, 140 countries have ended the practice or stopped implementing it through moratoriums.
Isticioaia-Budura also expressed doubts about the crime deterrent effect of capital punishment, saying: "Extensive studies done in different countries and regions of the world have found no proof that the death penalty has a direct correlation with reducing serious crime, or that abolishing it increases serious crime."
"The death penalty eliminates a defendant once and for all," Isticioaia-Budura said. As no court system in the world is perfect, "If a mistake is made, and then discovered, a person who was wrongfully executed can never be brought back."
Based on the EU's stance, Isticioaia-Budura welcomed the Japan Federation of Bar Associations' call for the abolition of capital punishment by 2020.
He also said the 28-member bloc will send a letter to Japan's Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa on the World and European Day against the Death Penalty next Tuesday to ask her to promote "an open public debate" on capital punishment, with a view to its abolition.
In Japan, the death penalty again came into the public eye when a death row inmate seeking a retrial was hanged in July.
Anti-death penalty campaigners have argued the execution breaches Article 32 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right of access to the courts, saying some death row inmates were exonerated in postwar Japan after their pleas for retrial had repeatedly been rejected.
Paroz said the death penalty "contravenes human rights" and that it "is not a suitable means of deterrence or atonement," while its abolition promotes human rights, peace and security.
Referring to Ireland's decision to end capital punishment in 1990, Barrington said, "The process to abolish the death penalty is not easy. It took nearly 70 years in our case."
"But we believe that it is the right thing to do and we hope that Japan, our friend and partner, will join us," she said.
According to human rights organization Amnesty International, 23 countries or regions, including Japan, executed inmates in 2016.
Source: Japan Today, October 7, 2017
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
