JAPAN: Secrecy of Japan's Executions Is Criticized as Unduly Cruel

When the hangman failed to summon him from his cell by late December, Toshihiko Hasegawa, a convicted murderer, reckoned that, by the practices of Japan's penal system, he had at least 1 more year to live.

 After weeks of intense foreboding over the approach of death, Mr. Hasegawa wrote his adoptive mother to tell her that he could at last breathe freely again for 1 more year, when he expected that his execution watch would resume.

 "It seems that I will somehow be able to survive this year's Christmas," he wrote. "This is thanks to you, Mother, who is praying to God for me every day, and I am really grateful. The fact I am about to survive this Christmas means I am newly given the precious time to devote myself to faith and atonement for my sins, and I have to use this time usefully, not to waste even a minute."

 2 days later, though, without any advance notice to him or his family, the 51-year-old prisoner was led from his cell and hanged. Takako Hasegawa, a 63-year-old Roman Catholic nun whose religious name is Sister Luisa and who adopted the death row inmate in 1993 after his conversion to Christianity, was informed several hours after the execution in a telephone call from the prisoner's sister.

 "My head was just swimming," she said in an interview. "I was in shock."

 Each year, around the year's end or early spring depending on the prison, a handful of inmates are led from their cells and hanged. What does not vary is the policy of near total secrecy that the families of the executed and human rights groups say makes Japan's practice of capital punishment unnecessarily cruel.

 Prisoners are told of their execution only moments before their hanging, and are given only enough time to clean their cells, write a final letter and receive last rites. Relatives are told of the execution only after the fact and are given a mere 24 hours to collect the body.

 Adding to the secrecy, the Ministry of Justice refuses to release the names of the hanged, except to their relatives, or even to confirm the number of prisoners on death row, which human rights lawyers now estimate at 56.

 Because it typically executes only five or six prisoners each year, Japan has managed to keep a relatively low profile with international campaigners against the death penalty. The United Nations Human Rights Commission, however, has condemned Japan's secretive executions.

 Abolishing capital punishment, meanwhile, has recently become the object of a bipartisan campaign in the Japanese Parliament, with many members focusing on the secretive handling of prisoners as the death penalty's most anachronistic feature.

 "The Hasegawa family was lucky," said Reiko Oshima, a member of Parliament who seeks to abolish the death penalty. "He was executed in Nagoya and had a sister who lived nearby. If the family lived far away or they couldn't be contacted immediately, the body would have been disposed of.

 "Of course the death penalty by its very nature is cruel, but all of these things make it much worse."

 Justice Ministry officials, for their part, insist that their system of secret executions is the most humane form of capital punishment.

 "It would be more cruel if we notified the inmates of their execution beforehand because it would inflict a major pain on them," said Jun Aoyama, a ministry official. "They would lose themselves to despair. They might even try to commit suicide or escape."

 In interviews, however, a former death row inmate and several relatives of executed prisoners all emphasized the severe anguish, which they said the practice of secret executions had caused them.

 Sakae Menda spent 34 years on death row before becoming one of the rare Japanese to be released, in 1983, after his conviction was set aside. In an interview, Mr. Menda described the excruciating uncertainty he felt each time execution season rolled around. Over the years, he said, about 70 of his friends were shuffled away to their hangings.

 "Between 8 and 8:30 in the morning was the most critical time, because that was generally when prisoners were notified of their execution," Mr. Menda said. "Once you get past that moment, life resumes until the next day. But during those minutes, things get so quiet that the only sound you can hear is the feet of the wardens.

 "You begin to feel the most terrible anxiety, because you don't know if they are going to stop in front of your cell. It is impossible to express how awful a feeling this was. I would have shivers down my spine. It was absolutely unbearable."

 Mr. Menda scoffs at the idea that withholding notification of prisoners' executions is a gesture of kindness. "Making us go through 30 to 40 minutes of intense stress like that every day was part of a system meant to make us docile," he said. "Saying they don't notify prisoners of their death beforehand because it isn't good for the inmates is just an excuse. The reality is that this is done for the convenience of the authorities."

 Relatives of prisoners and death penalty opponents say the practice of secret executions has withstood calls for reform because of the powerful role of shame in Japanese society. Here, one's identity is far more tied up with one's family than in the West, and the taint of any serious crime can blight an entire household for generations.

 For this reason, the bodies of most executed prisoners go unclaimed, because the families have already disassociated themselves from the criminal. Few relatives are willing to protest publicly, or even comment on the state's execution policies.

 For some on death row, their main link with the outside world has come through adoption. Ms. Hasegawa adopted her recently executed son in 1993, when he was 43 years old and had exhausted all appeals over his conviction for the murder of 3 people in an insurance fraud scheme. In doing so, she joined a small but fervent community of Christians and other social activists in Japan who adopt prisoners to prevent them from facing total isolation.

 "He had 3 siblings, but they decided they didn't want to have anything to do with him," she said of Toshihiko Hasegawa. "His father visited him once or twice before he died, but they lived in the countryside and faced a lot of ostracism, with people watching them all the time. In Japan, that is the way shame functions."

 Itsuko and Toshiichi Ajima, a gently graying couple in their 50's, also adopted a man on death row. In 1994, Ms. Ajima learned of the execution of Yukio, her adopted son, in a telegram from the prison that read: "We want to discuss something urgently. Please call us immediately."

 When they telephoned, a prison official said: "Today, we parted with Yukio-san. Shall we cremate the body, or will you pick it up within 24 hours?"

 The Ajimas have spent the years since writing letters to legislators and making television appearances aimed at raising public awareness about the death penalty. "We felt we had to do whatever we could to make sure that he was the last person in Japan to die like this."

 With so few biological relatives of prisoners willing to speak out, one of the most powerful advocates of the abolishment of capital punishment has turned out to be Masaharu Harada, 55, a brother of one of Mr. Hasegawa's insurance fraud victims who has often appeared on television here to condemn the death penalty.

 After his imprisonment, Mr. Hasegawa wrote regularly to Mr. Harada to express his remorse over the killing, and for years, the victim's brother said he burned the letters without reading them. When he finally did open a letter one day, Mr. Harada said he was impressed with the sincerity of the prisoner's search for atonement.

 "I began to wonder, how can people atone if they are put to death, and, will I be healed by the execution?" Mr. Harada said, explaining his transformation into a campaigner against the death penalty.

 The policy of secrecy, he said, is a mistaken effort to preserve the dignity of the state.

 "It is as if they are saying, `Anything the state does is just,' " Mr. Harada said. "But the prisoner himself, as well as the family members, should be notified beforehand. Just think how cruel it is to spend your life every day thinking you or your family might be executed today or tomorrow."