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Japan execution sparks Church call for abolition

Govt criticized deaths of political prisoners in Myanmar but did same thing, bishops say after murderer hanged
Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a budget committee session in the upper house of parliament in Tokyo on Dec. 20, 2021. Japan has carried out four executions since Kishida assumed office in October 2021

Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a budget committee session in the upper house of parliament in Tokyo on Dec. 20, 2021. Japan has carried out four executions since Kishida assumed office in October 2021. (Photo: AFP)

Published: July 29, 2022 03:37 AM GMT
Updated: July 29, 2022 04:06 AM GMT

Catholic bishops have expressed sadness after Japan executed a convicted murderer, and demanded the abolition of the death penalty saying, “the violence of the death penalty can never build a peaceful society.” 

Japan hanged 39-year-old Tomohiro Kato on July 26. He was convicted of killing seven people in a stabbing rampage in Tokyo’s popular Akihabara electronics district in 2008.

The death penalty is an "attack on the inviolability and dignity of personality" and “so is unacceptable,” said the Japanese Catholic bishops’ Justice and Peace Commission.

The Church also works to abolish the death penalty worldwide, said the bishops’ July 26 letter addressed to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Minister of Justice Yoshihisa Furukawa.

Kato’s hanging was the fourth execution under the administration of Kishida who assumed office in October 2021. The first three executions were carried out last December.

The bishop’s letter recalled the 2018 executions of six members of a cult called Aum Shinrikyo, who were convicted of killing 13 people in a chemical attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.

“The violence of the death penalty can never build a peaceful society"

“On July 26, 2018, six Aum Shinrikyo-related convicts on death row were executed all at once. I am terrified that the nation dared to choose this same day and once again eliminated a human recognizing his life not worth living," said the letter issued by Capuchin Bishop Wayne Francis Berndt, chairman of the bishops’ commission.

He also referred to the junta in Myanmar executing four political prisoners last week, the first such executions in more than three decades.

The Japanese government condemned it, expressing worry that the executions would "invite further isolation” of Myanmar in the international community.

“However, we are seriously worried" that the Japanese government has taken the same step of violence that might cause the “depreciation of its international status,” the letter said.

“The violence of the death penalty can never build a peaceful society. Rather, the barbarism that goes against the times creates new violence,” the letter reiterated.

Rights groups including Amnesty International also came out against the execution.

“Carrying out an execution during a request for retrial clearly violates international safeguards"

The hanging of Kato “is a callous attack on the right to life. Regardless of the crimes he had committed, he should never have suffered the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment at the hands of the state,” said Hideaki Nakagawa, director of Amnesty International Japan, in a statement.

Nakagawa said Kato was in the process of requesting a second retrial.

“Carrying out an execution during a request for retrial clearly violates international safeguards set out to protect the rights of those facing the death penalty,” he said.

Amnesty also demanded that Japan declare “a moratorium on executions as a first step toward abolishing the death penalty entirely — and commute all death sentences to terms of imprisonment.”

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