Japan has year without executions

and no expansion of detention facilities? Anyway, next justice minister will have to work ovetime.

Justice Minister Hiraoka has shown reluctance to approve any executions, saying national debate is needed on whether Japan should maintain or abolish the death penalty, which is generally reserved for those convicted of multiple murders.

Unfortuantely, Shoko Asahara has not been strung up yet. I'd like to read the news here one day soon that he's been executed for his heinous crimes before any official moratorium on the death penalty is put in place, let alone it being abolished.

In a legal quirk, executions—always carried out by hanging in Japan—are banned over the New Year period, with a moratorium between Dec 29 and Jan 3 as well as on weekends and public holidays.

I guess murderers also get vacattions......or is it, the JGov officials want their days off?

No executions for a whole year? I'm impressed. Stay on the wagon, Japan!

“I cannot die before the criminal does,” the 77-year-old told Sankei.

Then keep breathing. But don't hold your breath.

The year has not finished last time I checked

Excellent news. Long may it continue.

Life for life would be fair, but Japan waits for multiple lives taken in murder. Very kind already. Any remaining justice can be taken care of in the next life, if it proves to exist as I believe it does.

What? lazy arses! i am tired of feeding them from my taxes!

I wonder how the families of the victims of the tortures, rapes, terrorism and murders committed by these sub-humans on death row feel about "punishment" being served?

@gogogo

"executions are banned over the New Year period, with a moratorium between Dec 29 and Jan 3"

So what you going to do with them..?

I suggest.. collect them all in to a one room , with Aum leader Mr,Shoko asahara and give them to breath Sarein gas ..to death.

they all to go Heaven at once.

Glad to hear it

nisegaijinDEC. 29, 2011 - 09:49AM JST What? lazy arses! i am tired of feeding them from my taxes!

Same Same Same!

I prefer Lethal Injections instead. The full flow of overloaded pain-killers are comfortable and leave no pain. If you hang wrongly, there still might be a chance the neck won't snap. Bloody painfull.

Send them to clean the radioactive waste at Fukushima , good innocents workers are getting sick , this way the convicts family think of them as Heroes.

"two birds with one stone"

Life for life would be fair, but Japan waits for multiple lives taken in murder.

Not necessarily. You have to kill multiple kids, for example, to cop the death penalty. Kill a single politician, however, and you will also cop it. There is a "heirarchy" determining the punishment: Pollies up top, then businessmen...all the way down to kids at the bottom. Personally I would place kids at the top - warranting more punishment - but that's just me.

So the Japanese government does understand what a moratorium is?

@Kevin Teh

Kevin there are many cases of botched lethal injections resulting in the person suffering emense pain. In some cases executioners spend up to 30 minutes poking the condemed with needles in an attempt to find a suitable vain. In other situations the correct amount of anesthetic is not administered resulting in the patient being awake and able to feel the lethal injection when it is administered but unable to move or scream because of the second chemical which completely paralyzed the body including the lungs. The result is a feeling of asphyxiation and extreme pain. Doctors say it would feel like every vain in your body is on fire.

Apart from the United States, Japan is the only major industrialized democracy to carry out capital punishment, a practice that has earned Tokyo repeat protests from European governments and human rights groups.

Funny, somehow I don't believe these sanctimonious European nations, such as France, Britain, Italy, Norway, etc. would apologize for all of the executions their governments committed during the years from 1945 to 1950. Nor would they hesitate to use mass executions again should history repeat itself. Japan and the United States are different from Europe. They don't reserve the death penalty for their political enemies. They use the death penalty as an instrument of justice for everyone, regardless of their station or politics, especially for the nameless weak who are preyed upon by deranged predators.

Japan has year without execution

My bad - thought this would be a review of government policy inaction,

Unfortuantely, Shoko Asahara has not been strung up yet. I'd like to read the news here one day soon that he's been executed for his heinous crimes

On the other hand, every morning when he wakes up he doesn't know if he's going to have breakfast or the rope. I also think there are those in government who are wary of giving him "martyr" status as apparently he still has a significant number of deluded followers. Who knows how they would pay their respects.

I guess Japan will make up more this sad year next year and really let these bad, evil, horrible criminals swing, next year??

...and thus a year without the murder of innocents wrongly accused. Good job. Plus, of course, those who did kill or commit crimes of such a heinous nature that their right to live freely has been taken away have the real experience of not living but merely existing within grey uniform walls of a prison where they do not escape from what they did or their punishment every single second of every single minute and hour of every single monotonous day.

"Apart from the United States, Japan is the only major industrialized democracy to carry out capital punishment, a practice that has earned Tokyo repeat protests from European governments and human rights groups."

How about the human rights of the victims and their families... The nerve about this human rights group. If found guilty with a capital punishment, EXECUTE. For Hentais, Rapists, Sex Maniacs, "Sekoharas".. make it a capital offense with a capital punishment and you will see how fast this type of crime vanished. Reminded me of one Philippine president that executed 4 rapists coming from rich families and made Rape punishable by death via Electric Chair. Rape crime almost turn to zero in the Philippines then.

they still have a couple of days left .

if you were to tell him that he was going to hang that day, he probably wouldn't comprehend it; go in one ear, out the other... his green mile would be the easiest to walk; I doubt officers would have any resistance from him...

On the other hand, every morning when he wakes up he doesn't know if he's going to have breakfast or the rope.

Wow japan, keep this up and peace will come! But there should be people dying of there crimes, don't hold back on people that deserve to die.

Bebert:

Japan and the United States are different from Europe. They don't reserve the death penalty for their political enemies.

What on earth does this mean? I would agree that the highly politicised capital punishment cases of China, Iran and possibly Pakistan and Saudi Arabia etc do not take place in the United States or Japan. But are you saying that such cases DO take place in Europe? Or did take place in Europe before the death penalty was abolished in most or all European countries? That is quite a claim. If you mean the former communist countries of central and eastern Europe, then maybe. It is true that what is now considered normal or acceptable is not necessarily the same as what was considered normal or acceptable in the past. Generally speaking, that is called progress.