Japan Urged To End Death Penalty

By ERIC PRIDEAUX, Associated Press Writer

TOKYO (AP) - Japan should abolish its death penalty, phase out corporal punishment of prisoners and stop deporting immigrants to countries where they face torture or execution, Amnesty International's chief said Friday.

Amnesty International Secretary-General Pierre Sane condemned the execution last week in Japan of three convicted murderers, calling such measures ``a violation of right to life.''

The Nov. 30 hangings brought to 39 the number of convicts executed here since authorities lifted a four-year moratorium on capital punishment in 1993. A total of 50 people, including the three men recently executed, were on death row in Japan at the end of last year.

Officials with the London-based human rights watchdog group said the use of ``leather handcuffs'' - belts wrapped tightly around an inmate's waist with one hand strapped in front and the other behind - cause excessive pain by contorting the body and violate a U.N. convention against torture that Japan has ratified.

In some cases, inmates were restrained for hours and forced to eat and defecate while bound, Amnesty said.

Last year, prisoners were put in such devices 612 times, the Justice Ministry said.

Amnesty officials praised Japan for cutting to fewer than 10 the number of times in the past year that prisoners were held in the device ``for extended periods.''

Jun Aoyama, a corrections official at the Justice Ministry, defended use of the belts, saying they were necessary to prevent violent prisoners from harming guards, other inmates or themselves.

Sane also said people from troubled countries seeking asylum in Japan have often been turned back before being allowed to apply for permission to stay, a policy he said violates global standards of humanitarianism.

Amnesty officials complained that such travelers were frequently confined in detention centers and denied access to lawyers.

Justice Ministry spokesman Atsushi Gokan denied on Friday that anybody asking to remain in Japan for humanitarian reasons was ever turned away before being permitted to apply for refugee status.