A Japanese legislator displayed in parliament a picture...

A Japanese legislator displayed in parliament a picture of an inmate who was executed by hanging in 2001 to illustrate the cruelty of the death penalty.
Reiko Oshima, a lower house member of the opposition Social Democratic Party, showed a judicial committee a close-up photograph of the neck of Toshihiko Hasegawa, 51, who was hanged in December in Nagoya Detention House in central Japan.
The photo, taken by Ms Oshima 28 hours after the hanging, showed dark-red welts on Hasegawa's neck.
"This is a reality of death by hanging," Oshima said.
She said the death penalty was against the nation's constitution, which bans cruel punishments.The Justice Ministry announces the executions performed and the number of inmates hanged, but does not disclose the names of those executed and the manner of death.
According to Forum 90, a group opposed to death penalty, 617 inmates have been executed since 1945. And 56 inmates are currently on death row in Japan. Until the very last moment, these do not know the date of their execution. Some have had to languish on death row for more than 30 years after the confirmation of their death sentence.
More than 100 members from both ruling and opposition parties belong to the national parliamentarians' league against death penalty headed by Shizuka Kamei of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Oshima is a member of the league.
But the policy of death by hanging was unlikely to be scrapped or replaced by other methods in the near future, a Justice Ministry official said.