Press Coverage of the three Hangings: December 7, 2007

1 )Amnesty International
2) Kyodo News
3) Japan Times
4) Asahi News
Photos of Protest at the Osaka Detention Center ( See )
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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA220162007


AI Index: ASA 22/016/2007 (Public)
News Service No: 236 
7 December 2007

Japan: Amnesty International condemns executions


Amnesty International strongly condemns and regrets the hanging of three men (FUKAWA Hiroki, FUJIMA Seiha, and IKEMOTO Noboru), in Japan today (7 December). These executions have taken place despite the UN General Assembly’s adoption of a resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions on 15 November.

This action runs counter to the universal protection of human rights and comes at a time when there is a clear international trend away from the use of the death penalty. On 15 November, the Third Committee of 62nd session of UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted the resolution on global moratorium on executions with 99 countries voting in favour of the resolution. The resolution will now come before the plenary of the UNGA for final adoption in mid-December.

Executions in Japan are typically held in secret. Prisoners are only informed hours before their executions and carried out without prior notice to the prisoners or their family.

These executions are the first under the present Minister of Justice HATOYAMA Kunio, who announced publicly in September that he was considering scrapping the rule under the Criminal Procedure Code requiring the signature of the Minister of Justice for executions. As of 7 December 2007, there are at least 107 prisoners on death row; 23 cases carrying the death sentence were confirmed by the courts in 2007, which marks the highest number since 1962.
Very few countries currently carry out executions: in 2006, only 25 countries carried out executions. Among major industrialized countries, Japan now is conspicuously the only country which has a fully operational death penalty system: the US Supreme Court has blocked all planned executions in the country until it makes a ruling on conducting executions by lethal injections.
Amnesty International calls on Japanese government to cease executions and adopt an immediate moratorium on executions in accordance with the UN resolution.
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Three inmates hanged, names disclosed for 1st time; Amnesty protests
Kyodo
Friday, December 7, 2007 at 14:33 EST

TOKYO — Three death row inmates were executed Friday, the Justice Ministry announced, disclosing the names of the hanged inmates and where they were put to death for the first time. Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama told the judicial affairs committee of the House of Representatives that he determined to disclose the names of the inmates, their criminal acts and where they were executed "as it is necessary to gain the understanding of the bereaved families of the victims and the public over the appropriateness of executions."
Japan previously only announced the number of executed inmates without disclosing their names. Such secrecy surrounding executions drew criticism at home as well as abroad.
The three executed inmates are Seiha Fujima, 47, and Hiroki Fukawa, 42, who were hanged at the Tokyo Detention House, and Noboru Ikemoto, 74, who was executed at the Osaka Detention House, according to the Justice Ministry.
The hangings are the first approved by Hatoyama, who controversially remarked after taking office in August that executions should be carried out systematically without requiring an order by the justice minister.
The latest executions brought the number of executed inmates this year to nine, the highest since 1976. At present, the number of inmates whose death sentences were finalized stands at 104.

The previous executions were carried out in August against three inmates under the instruction of Hatoyama's predecessor, Jinen Nagase, who issued execution orders for 10 inmates during his one-year term.

Fujima was accused of killing five people between 1981 and 1982, while Fukawa murdered two in 1999. Ikemoto was accused of fatally shooting three people in 1985.

Ikemoto was initially sentenced to life imprisonment at the Tokushima District Court, but the decision was overturned at the Takamatsu High Court, whose ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court.

Amnesty International Japan issued a statement to condemn the executions, saying, "While the names of the executed inmates were disclosed, the hangings were implemented suddenly, as usual, without notifying the inmates, their families or anyone else."

Mounting a protest against the fact that nine inmates have been killed this year, more than in the previous year, the international human rights group said, "Japan has gone against the global trend to abolish the death penalty...Only Japan and the United States maintain capital punishment among the Group of Eight nations at present, and in the United States, the numbers of executions and death sentences have gradually been declining."

"Amnesty expects Japan to take a step toward terminating the death penalty, the ultimate human rights violation, in the near future," it said.

On Japan's capital punishment system, the U.N. Committee against Torture has requested Tokyo to immediately introduce a moratorium on executions, indicating the psychological strain imposed on death-row inmates and their families by the constant uncertainty about the date of execution could amount to torture or ill-treatment. (Kyodo News)

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Three hanged and named in ministry first
Disclosures end secrecy policy on executions

Japan Times
Saturday, Dec. 8, 2007


By JUN HONGO
Staff writer

The Justice Ministry executed three death-row inmates Friday and, in a break with its secrecy policy, released their names and details directly to the public.

Seiha Fujima, 47, Hiroki Fukawa, 42, and Noboru Ikemoto, 74, were hanged early Friday, the ministry said. Fujima and Fukawa were executed at the Tokyo Detention House and Ikemoto at the Osaka Detention House.

The first executions authorized by Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama reduced the number of inmates on death row to 104. His predecessor, Jinen Nagase, approved 10 executions during an 11-month stint, including last Christmas Day.

The government's secrecy policy on executions has been widely criticized. Since 1998, the ministry has limited disclosure on executions to just the number hanged on grounds that anything else might cause "emotional unsteadiness" in other inmates, and be criticized as insensitive toward convicts' kin. Before that, the ministry didn't disclose any information on executions.

But in an apparent effort to dispel the criticism, the ministry Friday disclosed the inmates' names, the crimes they were convicted of and the locations where they were hanged.

"Disclosure of such information is important to explain to the public that executions are being properly carried out," a Justice Ministry statement said.

Later in the day, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said he hopes the disclosures continue.

But death penalty opponents argued Friday's information disclosure is far from sufficient to ensure transparency.

Koichi Kikuta, a professor emeritus at Meiji University and noted death penalty opponent, slammed the government announcement, saying releasing only the names, crimes and the location of the executions would only strengthen the public image of the convicts as "vicious."

At a news conference jointly organized by lawmakers opposing capital punishment, Kikuta demanded the government also make public the physical and mental state of the death-row inmates, as well as the rationale for the timing of executions.

Fujima was convicted of murdering a 16-year-old girl, her younger sister and their mother at their house in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, in May 1982. After stalking the girl for more than six months, he stabbed the three with a kitchen knife and a pocket knife after the girl spurned him.

Fujima was also found guilty of killing an accomplice in the crime and an acquaintance from a burglary. Fujima's lawyers argued that he was insane and thus should not have been held liable for the killings, but his sentence was finalized by the Supreme Court in June 2004.

Fukawa was arrested in May 1999 and convicted of fatally stabbing a 65-year-old colleague from a newspaper delivery company and her 91-year-old mother, after the colleague refused to lend him ¥2 million. His death sentence was finalized in January 2003 after he withdrew his Supreme Court appeal.

Ikemoto fatally shotgunned a distant 46-year-old relative and his spouse at the relative's house in June 1985 after having a heated debate with the couple over litter on his property. Ikemoto then went outside and shot a 71-year-old neighbor to death and wounded a bystander.

His appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court in March 1996.

The Japan Federation of Bar Associations denounced Friday's hangings in a statement released by Chairman Seigo Hirayama.

"There is always the danger of a wrongful execution," Hirayama said, calling for a moratorium on executions until the capital punishment system is reformed on the basis of open public debate.

The federation also demanded that the government ease restrictions on visits to and communication with death-row inmates. Such contact is restricted to family members and lawyers, and to an extremely limited number of occasions.

Hirayama also implied that the hangings reflect Japan's reluctance to follow an international trend toward abolishing capital punishment. Japan and the United States are the only major industrialized countries that still uphold capital punishment.

Calling executions an "ultimate violation of human rights," Amnesty International Japan also denounced Japan's practice of hanging inmates without giving them any prior notification.
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Ministry names executed convicts for first time
12/08/2007
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

In a policy shift on capital punishment by the normally secretive Justice Ministry, officials announced the names of three death-row convicts executed Friday for the murders of 10 people.

In the past, the ministry did not even acknowledge that executions had taken place. It was only from November 1998 that the ministry began announcing that prisoners had been put to death. But that was the only information given.
Ministry officials said the announcement Friday was intended to respond to requests from the public for greater information disclosure.
Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama is said to have made the decision to disclose the names because such information would show the public that death sentences were being carried out appropriately, officials said.

However, Hatoyama had earlier raised questions about the death sentence, including the possibility of carrying out executions automatically without the approval of the justice minister.

Ritsuo Hosokawa of opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) asked Hatoyama about his views of the death sentence at the Lower House Judicial Affairs Committee on Friday.
"It is painful (to sign execution orders) but I understand that it must be undertaken in an orderly manner based on law," Hatoyama said. "I signed knowing that it is a responsibility I cannot escape."

When Hosokawa heard Hatoyama's admission that executions had taken place, he said he could no longer continue with the questioning because he was too shocked.

It is extremely unusual for a justice minister to admit in the Diet that an execution has taken place. Those executed on Friday were Seiha Fujima, 47; Hiroki Fukawa, 42; and Noboru Ikemoto, 74.

Fujima and Fukawa were hanged at the Tokyo Detention House, while Ikemoto was executed at the Osaka Detention House. The ministry also released details of the crimes committed by the convicts.

According to the ministry and court verdicts, Fujima went on a killing spree in 1981 and 1982, fatally stabbing five people, including a family of three in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture.
Fukawa asked for a loan from a 65-year-old woman in Tokyo's Edogawa Ward in 1999 so that he could go on a date. When the woman refused, Fukawa stabbed her and her mother to death.

In 1985, Ikemoto fatally shot three neighbors and injured another with a shotgun in Tokushima Prefecture. He said he thought that they were harassing him by dumping their garbage in his garden.

The three executions bring to nine the number of those hanged this year, the highest annual number since 1977. The Justice Ministry did not disclose execution information in the past out of consideration for bereaved family members of the executed as well as others on death row.

That veil of secrecy meant that groups opposed to the death sentence and media organizations had to make educated guesses about which convicts had been executed.

Ministry officials said they decided to go ahead with disclosure rather than continue to be criticized for being secretive, especially since a majority of the public supports capital punishment.

Hatoyama also said he informed Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on Friday morning of the plan to disclose the names of the executed prisoners.

Fukuda was quoted as saying he endorsed the move because the feelings of bereaved relatives of the victims should be taken into account.

Amnesty International Japan said in a statement Friday that while the disclosure of the names of the three inmates broke through the secrecy of Japan's execution system, the group objected to the fact that nine inmates have been hanged so far this year.(IHT/Asahi: December 8,2007)