Japan announces death penalty review after hanging two men

Keiko Chiba

Japan angered abolitionists by executing two men this week, in the first hangings since the country’s center-left government took office in September. Tokyo's new government says it still has plans to review its use of the death penalty.

Justice Minister Keiko Chiba (left) took the unprecedented step of attending the executions of Kazuo Shinozawa and Hidenori Ogata at the Tokyo Detention Center on Wednesday.

Shinozawa burned six women to death after setting a jewelry store alight in 2000; Ogata strangled a woman and fatally stabbed a man in 2003.

Minister Chiba, a longtime opponent of capital punishment, had raised hopes that Japan was moving towards a de facto moratorium on hangings after her appointment last year.

“It is not that I changed my mind,” said Ms. Chiba, who was a member of a parliamentarians’ group opposed to the death penalty until she became justice minister. “I attended the executions as I believe it is my duty to see them through.

"Witnessing [them] with my own eyes made me think deeply about the death penalty, and I once again strongly felt that there is a need for a fundamental discussion.”

Human rights groups condemned the executions, which came a year to the day after the last round of hangings.

“Japan continues to go against the international trend toward abolition and mete out this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment,” said Donna Guest, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific program. “A day that should have marked one year without executions has instead seen Japan return to carrying out state-sponsored killings.”

Japan has resisted pressure from the European Union, which calls for the universal abolition of capital punishment.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she “deeply regretted” the executions.

Japan and the US are the only members of the G8 to retain the death penalty, while, according to Amnesty, 139 countries – about two-thirds of the world’s total – have either abolished or stopped using the punishment. For the first time in five years Taiwan also recently carried out executions after the resignation of a justice minister who had been criticized for saying she would not sign death warrants.

Chiba said she had instructed the detention center to allow the media to visit the facility and ordered the justice ministry to form a panel to review Japan’s retention of capital punishment. However, it appears there was no advance notice to the public on the executions.

This week’s executions bring the number of condemned inmates in Japan to 107. They typically spend years on death row and are not informed of their execution until moments before they are hanged. Their lawyers and relatives are informed only after the sentence has been carried out.

Chiba may soon be replaced as justice minister after losing her seat in upper house elections earlier this month. She reportedly signed the execution orders last Saturday, a day before her parliamentary term was due to end.

Amnesty said any debate about capital punishment should coincide with a freeze on executions. “It is contradictory to execute someone while proposing a debate on it,” it said in a statement.

Still, despite recent hopes for an end to the death penalty, opposition to the death penalty among citizens in Japan is muted. According to a government poll conducted in February, a record 85.6 percent of respondents said retaining the punishment was “unavoidable.”

Given that level of support, Chiba herself appeared to suggest that Japan would continue to send people to the gallows. "I think it will be something for this country's people to decide if, after various discussions, the majority of public opinion is for the death penalty to be abolished,” she said.

Source: The Christian Science Monitor, July 29, 2010

Comments

Tibetan protesters executed for Lhasa riot killings

Tibetan exiles have reported the first executions of those convicted for rioting last year in Lhasa, with at least two people put to death in a rare implementation of capital punishment in the restive region. Two Tibetans convicted of arson and sentenced to death in April were executed on Tuesday morning in Lhasa, reported The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, which is based in the Indian town of Dharamsala—the home in exile of the Dalai Lama. It said that Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak had been sentenced to death for their part in setting fire to five shops in the Tibetan capital, killing seven people, in the riot that rocked Lhasa in March last year. Officials say that 21 people — including three Tibetan protesters — died in the violence, which embarrassed Beijing just as it was preparing to stage the Olympic Games and prompted a security crackdown across the Himalayan region. The body of Mr. Gyaltsen had been returned to his family and then submitted to a river burial—an un...

Iran: Delara Darabi has now been scheduled for execution

Delara Darabi has now been scheduled for execution, according to the Iranian newspaper Etemad on 18 April, according to another source on 20 April. She was convicted of murdering a relative when she was 17. Unless the Judiciary intervenes, she can now escape execution only if the woman’s entire family accept payment of diyeh, or blood money. One of the familly is said to be undecided. Iran is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibit the use of the death penalty against people convicted of crimes committed when they were under 18. RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible: - expressing concern that Delara Darabi is in imminent danger of execution for a crime committed when she was under 18; - calling on the authorities to halt the execution of Delara Darabi immediately, and commute her death sentence; - reminding the authorities that Iran is a state part...

Florida | Former prison warden who oversaw executions urges corrections workers to not participate in them

Recently Florida carried out the execution of Dusty Spencer , a 74-year-old Marine veteran, for the murder of his wife, Karen, in 1992. It was the ninth Florida execution this year. For their own sake, I urge Florida’s corrections workers to refuse to carry out another one. Before you dismiss me as some soft lefty, you should know that I am an Air Force veteran. I voted for Ron DeSantis for governor twice—and for Donald Trump for president three times.

Iran: Prisoner of conscience Mohsen Amir Aslani hanged for ‘different interpretation of Quran’

Mohsen Amir Aslani NCRI - The Iranian Resistance calls on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Human Rights Council, as well as all international human rights organizations to strongly condemn the execution of prisoner of conscience Mr Mohsen Amir Aslani on charges of “corruption on earth; changing Islam’s principles and secondary laws; and new interpretation of Quran”. It further calls for adoption of binding decisions against the growing number of arbitrary executions by the religious fascism ruling Iran. Mr. Amir Aslani, 37, who had been in prison since eight years ago, was once sentenced to four years in prison which was later commuted to twenty-eight months. However, as more fabricated charges were brought against him, the head henchman Judge Salavati condemned him to death. The Iranian regime has refraining from handing over the body of this prisoner to his family through stonewalling and offering contradictory answers to them. The execution...

Iraq: Saddam Hussein Execution was Moved Forward Because of Gaddafi Rescue Plans, Judge Says

Saddam Hussein's execution on December 30, 2006 The execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was accelerated due to the belief that the then Libyan leader, Muammar El-Gaddafi, had a plan to rescue him from prison, Judge Mounir Haddad revealed today. Hadad, who presided over the trial of Hussein, revealed to the Al-Arabiya Satellite Channel Point of Order program new details of the trial against the former president and his last moments before being hanged, including the 'health and welfare' votes for the magistrate himself . According to his testimony, the application of the death penalty to Saddam Hussein was precipitated because authorities knew that El-Gaddafi - later murdered in 2011 - was allegedly trying to bribe US guards who guarded him to rescue him from prison. He added that, contrary to previous reports from the local and US press, former Iraqi President Jalal Talabani gave his 'implicit approval' for Hussein's execution, an...

Tennessee Reduced Training in IV Placement in New Lethal Injection Protocol

The protocol that took effect in 2025 sheds new light on Tony Carruthers’ botched execution, when Dr. Mark Fowler spent nearly an hour trying, and failing, to place a secondary IV line Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol adopted a year and a half ago appears to include reduced training in IV placement. That’s the part of the process prison staff failed to complete last month before aborting the execution of Tony Carruthers. Filings from ongoing litigation over the protocol show concerns about the executioners’ training and qualifications aren’t new.

Halfway through the year, Saudi Arabia has already executed nearly 100 people

Almost 100 people executed so far this year as dozens more remain on death row for drug-related offences Saudi Arabian authorities have executed nearly 100 people so far this year, including at least 61 for drug-related offences, the latest of which was on 18 June. In response, Dana Ahmed, Middle East Researcher at Amnesty International, said today: “It is halfway through the year and Saudi Arabia has executed nearly 100 people, a grim milestone exposing the authorities’ unconscionable and unlawful use of the death penalty. Of the 96 people put to death already in 2026, an astounding 61 were executed for drug-related offences; 39 of them were foreign nationals and 22 Saudi nationals.

U.S. | Lethal injections are more likely to be botched, experts say

Tony Carruthers, a Memphis man on death row, is one of hundreds of people in the U.S. whose executions did not go as planned When the Tennessee Department of Corrections botched Tony Carruthers’ execution, it wasn’t surprising to Austin Sarat. He’s been researching and writing about “state killings” for decades. “Of all of the methods of execution used in the United States over the last 140 years, lethal injection has the highest rate of being botched,” said Sarat, a professor of law and politics at Amherst College. He said an execution is botched when it deviates from standard operating procedure or official legal protocol.

Florida executes Dusty Ray Spencer

74-year-old man becomes oldest inmate executed in modern Florida history A 74-year-old man convicted of fatally stabbing his wife became the oldest person executed in Florida’s modern history on Thursday, and the state is scheduled to execute another 74-year-old inmate next month. Dusty Ray Spencer was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. Spencer was convicted of the 1992 stabbing death of his wife Karen.

As Idaho Reinstates Firing Squad, Volunteers Sought for Executions

The state becomes the first in the U.S. to make the firing squad the standard method of capital punishment Idaho is opening a new phase in the administration of capital punishment in the United States, returning to the firing squad as the default method of execution. The decision reintroduces a system that has been abolished or abandoned in most of the country and is now being reorganized through a formal and highly structured framework. The new death penalty protocol State authorities have begun recruiting volunteer law enforcement officers to take part in executions. The operational model includes three primary shooters assigned to carry out the execution, two alternates, and one operations coordinator. All participants will remain anonymous, known only to the prison warden and deputy warden.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog