CRIME-JAPAN-PENALTY  On Japan's death row, any day could be the last

   By Elaine Lies   TOKYO, Feb 5  - On a cold winter's morning six weeks ago,   Toshihiko Hasegawa was told without warning that it was the last day of his   life.

 By noon, the 51-year-old death row inmate at Nagoya Detention House,   west of Tokyo, had been hanged.

 His family wasn't told until it was all over.

 Capital punishment has roused little debate among Japanese, who polls   show strongly support the death penalty.

 But with Japan and the United States the only two advanced nations where   the death penalty is carried out, international pressure is increasing and   questions are being raised.   Unusually for Japan, even some politicians are starting to discuss the   issue and a group of lawmakers has begun working on a proposal to abolish   the death penalty.

 It is the first such move in nearly half a century.

 "For whom is this death penalty carried out?" said Shizuka Kamei, a   heavyweight in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, who heads the lawmakers   group.

 "If the national authority does not protect human life, I do not believe   you can say that the nation is sound," he told a recent news conference,   which also involved global human rights group Amnesty International.

 Masaharu Harada, whose brother was killed by Hasegawa, says the death   penalty does little to ease the pain of a victim's relatives -- one main   argument cited in its favour in Japan.

 "The crime will remain with me as long as I live. But we should use the   fact of Hasegawa's execution to think (again) about the death penalty," he   told the same gathering.

 "Did his execution bring me satisfaction? No, not one bit." PEACE OF   MIND Hasegawa, one of two men hanged on December 27, was sentenced to   death in 1993 for three murders. The other was Kojiro Asakura, who received   his sentence in 1996 for killing five.

 There are currently believed to be about 50 death row inmates in Japan.   The exact figure is not well publicised.

 While the United States executes many more prisoners each year -- over   60 were put to death there in 2001 alone, as opposed to 41 in Japan since   1993 -- Japan has been singled out for what critics charge is the unusual   cruelty of its procedures.

 In line with standard practice, the two men were not told of their   impending execution until the morning it took place.

 "The families aren't informed until everything is over, basically so   they can come and pick up the body," said Akira Ishikawa at Amnesty   International's Tokyo branch.

 A Justice Ministry official said Japan's procedures had been set out of   consideration for the prisoners' peace of mind.

 "They are very insecure and unstable, so telling them too far before the execution would be cruel," he said. "It would be too   hard on them and could even lead to some suicides."   Critics allege the opposite is true.   "Frankly, it must be terrible to wake up every morning and wait to see   if this is the last day of their life," said Emma Bonino, a European Union   lawmaker and former EU commissioner for humanitarian affairs.

 Analysts, though, cited cultural differences and said the U.S. practice   -- setting the date far ahead of time -- could also be considered cruel   since it lengthens the period in which prisoners live with the awareness of   when they will die.

 "Most Japanese would also find it very hard to tell somebody ahead of   time when they would die," said social commentator Akio Ono.

 Despite this, support for the death penalty is strong, bolstered by   crimes such as the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system that   killed 12 and made thousands ill.

 MOST IN FAVOUR A 1999 survey, the most recent available, found that   some 80 percent of Japanese were in favour of capital punishment.

 Many appeared to favour the classic argument used by death penalty   proponents -- that the threat of hanging deters crimes.

 Lawmaker Kamei, a former policeman, disagreed.

 "Then serious crimes should be way down in Japan and the United States.   But, at least here, they are rising rapidly." Based on his experience,   he said, a more crucial concern was mistakes that result in an innocent   person being put to death.

 This is a particular worry in Japan, where nearly 99 percent of criminal   trials end with conviction and reliance on confessions is high.   However, suspects may be held by police for as many as 23 days before   indictment and are not guaranteed the presence of a lawyer for all   interrogations.

 "There's the chance of a situation developing where the prisoner just   repeats back what the questioner says," Kamei said.

 "I have seen this frightening thing a number of times." In one case,   Sakae Menda was wrongly convicted of murder and spent 32 years on death row   until a retrial in 1983 made him Japan's first prisoner awaiting execution   to be freed.

 Yet there is little public debate on the issue.

 Bonino, who visited Tokyo last month, said this was due largely to a   lack of transparency.

 VEIL OF SECRECY Such is the veil of secrecy over executions in Japan   that it was not until several years ago that the government would even   confirm prisoners had been put to death. 

 "When there is no public debate and transparency is zero, more and more   you will have public opinion in favour of the death penalty," she said. "At   the least, we must have more openness." Lawmakers in the group headed by   Kamei hope to provoke debate by preparing a bill to abolish the death   penalty for eventual submission to parliament. The last similar move occurred in 1956. "Before the current parliamentary session ends (in June) we   want to finish preparing this," lawmaker Nobuto Hosaka said.   But any such bill would face an uphill fight. Of a total 727 lawmakers,   only around 100 are in the group.

 "I believe there are others in parliament who think the same way, but   given the strong public support for the death penalty, coming out against it   publicly is full of minuses," Hosaka said.

 "But if we don't try, nothing will change."