‘No warning’: the death penalty in Japan

Members of Amnesty International hold a rally to protest against Japan’s death penalty in front of the national Diet in Tokyo on July 28, 2009. FILE PHOTO/Agence France-Presse

TOKYO — Iwao Hakamada, the world’s longest-serving death row prisoner who was freed in 2014, will learn on Thursday if he will again face execution or finally be acquitted.

The death penalty has strong public support in Japan, where scrapping it is rarely discussed, but it is also criticized internationally for the “cruel” way it is carried out.

Here are some things to know:

80% support

Japan and the United States are the only two members of the Group of Seven industrialized economies to retain the death penalty.

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There is overwhelming public support for the practice: a 2019 Japanese government survey found that 80 percent of respondents saw the death penalty as “unavoidable”.

In the same survey, which had more than 1,500 participants, just nine percent were in favor of abolishing it.

Of those who supported capital punishment, around 57 percent said victims’ families “would never feel vindicated” if it were scrapped.

Dozens on death row

As of December, 107 prisoners were waiting for their death sentences to be carried out, the Justice Ministry told AFP. It is always done by hanging.

The law stipulates that executions must be carried out within six months of a finalized verdict.

READ: Japanese death row inmates sue over ‘cruel’ hanging

In reality, most inmates are left on tenterhooks in solitary confinement for years — and sometimes decades — often taking a severe toll on their mental health.

‘Cruel’ method

Hanging has been Japan’s sole execution method for around a century-and-a-half.

Convicts are led to the gallows blindfolded, with their feet bound and hands cuffed.

A trapdoor opens below them when several prison officers each press a button simultaneously in an adjacent room.

None is told which button triggers the deadly mechanism.

Three death-row prisoners sought an injunction against the hanging method in 2022, calling it cruel.

Critics have argued that hanging is prone to botched executions and makes for a long, agonising death.

Recent executions

No executions were carried out in Japan in 2023 but there was one in 2022 and three in 2021.

The last hanging, in July 2022, was of Tomohiro Kato, who killed seven people in 2008 when he rammed a truck into pedestrians in Tokyo’s Akihabara district and then went on a stabbing spree.

The high-profile executions of the guru Shoko Asahara and 12 former members of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult took place in 2018.

Aum Shinrikyo orchestrated the 1995 sarin gas attacks on Tokyo’s subway system, killing 13 people and making thousands more ill.

A 21-year-old man was reportedly sentenced to death last week for killing the parents of a girl he had a crush on and setting their home on fire.

‘No warning’

There is widespread criticism of the system and the government’s lack of transparency over the practice.

Inmates are often informed of their impending death at the last minute, typically in the early morning just a few hours before it happens.

Some “may be given no warning at all”, rights group Amnesty International once said in a report.

The psychological pain of not knowing when they will be put to death prompted two prisoners to file a lawsuit against the late-notice system in 2021, with a verdict reportedly expected in April.

No family members are allowed to witness the inmates’ last moments.

Public discourse on the death penalty is also limited, with activists calling for better disclosure of information by authorities to stimulate nationwide discussions.