Japan’s justice minister vowed on Tuesday to carry out more executions after the country’s first hangings in over a year, saying the vast majority of the public supported the death penalty.
Japan hanged four prisoners on Christmas Day, including two men in their seventies, triggering criticism by some lawmakers, lawyers and members of the minority Christian community.
“I am aware of various opinions on the issue, but nearly 80% of the people in this country have no objection to the existence of the death penalty,” Justice Minister Jinen Nagase told reporters.
“I don’t have any plan to change the current justice system,” he said.
Japan is the only major industrialised nation other than the United States to practise the death penalty. A government poll conducted in 2004 found that only 6% of Japanese opposed capital punishment.
But the death penalty was on hold since September 2005 as former justice minister Seiken Sugiura refused to sign off on executions, saying they went against his Buddhist beliefs.
Nagase, who replaced Sugiura when conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took over in September this year, also said he would not change controversial procedures for executions.
Japan notifies death-row inmates that they will be executed only hours in advance. The government also refuses to identify which prisoners were killed, although the names are routinely reported by domestic media.
“The death penalty works when it is carried out. Announcing more than the current information could generate further anxiety and make the penalty more severe,” Nagase said.
The Japan Federation of Bar Associations called for the suspension of the death penalty after the latest executions, saying innocent people may be killed and that Japan was going against an international trend to abolish capital punishment. — AFP