- 26.02.01

Japan in dock for 'inhuman' treatment on death row

Tokyo could have its Council of Europe observer status revoked after delegation is refused access to 'secretive' execution facilities Jonathan Watts in Tokyo Japan has been attacked for its "inhuman" and secretive treatment of death row prisoners after a European human rights delegation was refused access to inmates and execution facilities. The delegation of lawmakers from the Council of Europe (which is wider than and unconnected to the European Union) was on a first ever international fact-finding mission into one of the world's most secretive systems of capital punishment. But the delegation ran into a brick wall when it attempted to investigate how convicts are looked after and executed, raising the prospect of a diplomatic row that would be embarrassing for Japan. The mission was invited by one of the 28 death row convicts - whose name cannot be revealed under Japanese regulations - at the Tokyo detention house, but their request to see him as turned down by the justice ministry and the prison warden. "They told us that we couldn't meet any inmates because it might disturb their peace of mind," said the mission's leader, Gunnar Jansson, the chairman of the council's human rights committee. "I've never heard anything like it." The group's mission is to determine whether Japan and other countries which still enforce the death penalty should retain their observer status at the Council of Europe, all of whose members promised in 1997 to abolish capital punishment. But while they have received offers of full cooperation in the US and other countries, in Japan they were only permitted to view an empty cell. "It is extremely sad that the Japanese justice ministry has taken such an attitude," said Nobuto Hosaka, the leader of a group of Japanese MPs in favour of abolishing the death penalty. "Clearly, Japan is trying to hide its executions from the international community." Japan has hanged 39 people since 1993 and 54 remain on death row. It gives no advance warning of executions, which are carried out in secret, usually during the New Year holiday when they are least likely to attract publicity. Prisoners are not informed of impending execution until an hour before it takes place. Their families have no advance warning and the names of those killed are never made public. The average hanging takes 23 minutes. No relatives or other observers are allowed to be present. On at least one occasion, the rope has failed to do the job and executioners have strangled the convict. "The treatment of the inmates is inhuman," said Mr Jansson. "The system of announcing the execution order on the same morning could be seen as torture." Citing this as a "problem" in relations between Japan and the Council of Europe, he said it was "completely possible" that he would recommend that Japan's observer status, granted in 1996, be revoked. The council's visit comes a week after the EU petitioned the Japanese government to abolish the death penalty. "The EU calls on Japan to renew its commitment to promoting respect for human rights by joining it in abolishing capital punishment in line with the international community view," the request said. The Japanese justice minister, Masahiko Komura, has rejected calls for abolition or a moratorium. "Eighty per cent of the public say the death penalty is imperative so it should be maintained," he said during a meeting with the EU delegation this week. "The nation's court rulings on the death penalty are based on an extremely thoughtful judgement and the actual executions are based on careful consideration. As a result, there is no need for a moratorium." The man who spent 30 years expecting each day to be his lastThe most terrifying aspect of Japanese capital punishment is the unusually high risk that innocent people may be executed, according to the man who knows life on death row better than anyone. Sakae Menda, now 78, spent more than 30 years thinking that each day could be his last after being sentenced to death in 1951 for a murder he did not commit. As in 99% of criminal trials in Japan, the judge (there are no juries) ruled in favour of the prosecution. The main evidence was a confession extracted from Mr Menda while in police custody. "They tied a rope around my ankles and hung me upside down from the ceiling. They took it in shifts to kick me and beat. I wasn't allowed to eat, sleep or drink until I told them what they wanted to hear," recalls Mr Menda, one of a handful of death-row prisoners to win a retrial. As is true today, detectives were able to hold him for more than three weeks without charging him and he had no legal right to insist that a lawyer be present at all interrogations. Although Mr Menda later retracted his confession at the high court, he was sent to Fukuoka prison to await execution. "Words can never describe the constant dread of being faced with death every single day," he says. "The first time I saw another inmate being taking to the execution room, I went insane." His fit of screaming earned him chobatsu, the toughest form of punishment. For two months, he was handcuffed to a metal belt tied around his waist, forcing him to eat like a dog. Although he was well behaved for the rest of his long incarceration, he was allowed out of his toilet-sized cell for only two hours a day. Prisoners believed their guards' reports determined the timing of executions. "Those who misbehaved seemed to be chosen first for hanging. We felt that guards had the power of life or death over us," he says. When Mr Menda first entered prison, inmates were informed the night before their executions, but that system was changed after one man committed suicide before he could be hanged. Mr Menda won his freedom in 1983 after five previous attempts to secure a retrial had failed. On his release, he was given 7,000 yen (�40) for every day of his wrongful imprisonment. He has given half of that 90m yen (�500,000) to a lawyers' group fighting for the release of death-row prisoners who are protesting their innocence