Sakae Menda, a former death row inmate who was declared innocent after 34 years of detention in Fukuoka Prison, wipes his eyes during a news conference in Tokyo in 2007. Amnesty International has recently condemned Japan's death penalty system as one of the most inhumane in the world, saying it drives inmates to psychosis. (Yuriko Nakao/Reuters)

Death row, Japanese-style: "Cruel, inhuman and degrading"

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Does Japan drive criminals insane? And execute them anyway? Amnesty International thinks so.

By Justin McCurry - GlobalPost

Published: September 23, 2009 05:56 ET
Updated: September 24, 2009 09:37 ET

TOKYO, Japan — Whether or not Iwao Hakamada committed the gruesome murders for which he was sentenced to hang is a matter of debate. What is certain is that the 73-year-old — the world’s longest-serving death row prisoner — has come to personify the cruelty inherent in Japan’s treatment of its most heinous criminals.

Hakamada, a former professional boxer, has spent 41 years on death row for a murder that even one of the three judges who sentenced him now believes he did not commit.

The possibility that an innocent man may have spent more than four decades in prison is not the only reason why Hakamada’s case has attracted the attention of human rights groups.

Amnesty International has accused Japan’s penal system of driving condemned men insane after subjecting them to, on average, at least seven years of “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment on death row.

The group’s 72-page report, published earlier this month, mounted a blistering critique of the idiosyncrasies that make capital punishment, Japan-style, among the most secretive and inhuman in the world.

Death row prisoners are locked away in solitary confinement, banned from talking to other inmates and permitted just two or three exercise periods a week. They are forbidden from moving around their cells, except to use the toilet, and meetings with lawyers and relatives are brief and infrequent, and always monitored.

Worst still is the uncertainty. Condemned men learn of the timing of their execution only hours before they are led away to the gallows. Their families are informed only after the fact, ostensibly so they can collect the body for cremation.

This, says Amnesty, constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment that sends many inmates into the depths of psychological despair.

“Each day could be their last, and the arrival of a prison officer with a death warrant would signal their execution within hours,” the report says. “Some live like this year after year, sometimes for decades.” Using interviews with relatives and lawyers, Amnesty says at least five death row inmates are mentally ill. Although international law and the Japanese criminal code ban the execution of prisoners deemed “insane,” the hangings continue.

“Japan’s death row system is driving prisoners into the depths of mental illness but they still being taken and hanged,” said Kate Allen, Amnesty’s U.K. director.

“The mental anguish of not knowing whether each day is to be your last is terrible enough. But Japan’s justice system also sees fit to bury its death row prisoners in the most punitive regime of silence, isolation and a sheer non-existence imaginable.”

Comments:

7 Comments.

Posted by david wayne osedach on September 23, 2009 07:58 ET

If you suffered a wife or child being murdered - this type of punishment to the killer wouldn't seem cruel, inhuman and degrading.

Posted by mandorson on September 23, 2009 10:42 ET

David, that's exactly why we don't have the victims or their families act as judges, juries, jailers or executioners. However, there is absolutely no excuse for the state acting in this barbaric way. Besides, what if the person is innocent? Would you want that on your conscience?

Posted by woode on October 19, 2009 15:04 ET

mandorson: why put anyone in jail then? You can be wrong.
If you don't want the punishment don't do the crime.

Posted by WeaselSlayer on September 23, 2009 16:12 ET

If your spouse or child ended up on death row it might.

Posted by Brian Patterson on September 26, 2009 01:51 ET

Life in prison is a very somber thought. You will never be free again. You will never be able to do any of the things you used to do because you will spend the rest of your life in a small cell. This is a severe penalty for anyone to serve. In most cases it is probably well deserved for previous actions. However, if you are not a military prisoner then inhumane treatment is not excusable. What is the point? You have already taken away freedom so why pile on? casino online

Posted by BrettHetherington on September 26, 2009 04:05 ET

I think that international attention should be brought to all the problems of the Japanese justice system, so this is an excellent piece in publicising a major fault that it has.

I lived in Japan for three years, and in this article of mine I examine some of the reasons for the existence of legal tragedies such as the infamous Kabutoyama case, where after twenty years, a teacher is still trying to clear herself after a seemingly baseless murder charge.

http://www.bretthetherington.net/default.aspx?pageId=88

Posted by susannbooers on September 26, 2009 05:35 ET

If I had suffered such a loss that was monumental such as the loss of a loved one I would want swift justice. This is slow torture in the worst degree! That does not make justice satisfying...it makes it cruel and unendurable.