Calls to abolish death penalty grow louder in Japan
Prisoners typically spend many years in solitary confinement, and only learn of the timing of their execution, by hanging, hours before it takes place
Japan’s use of the death penalty is expected to come under unprecedented domestic pressure when, for the first time, the country’s legal community calls for its abolition next month.
The Japan Federation of Bar Associations, whose membership includes 37,000 lawyers and hundreds of other legal professionals, said it would declare its opposition to capital punishment at a meeting in early October due to growing concern over miscarriages of justice.
The declaration will put the federation at odds with the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, whose administration has executed 16 people since it took office in late 2012.
Successive Japanese governments have resisted pressure from the UN, the European Union and human rights groups to abolish the death penalty.