JAPAN

Yoshiaki Nishimura, 46, ended his life before the hangman did it for him in the Kyushu island prison of Fukuoka today.
Nishimura was sentenced to death in 1997 for strangling to death Hiroko Oyama, a doctor’s wife, and stealing 16.5 million yen from her current account. Nishimura had appealed his death sentence on the grounds that the murder had taken place during a dispute over money. The convict had already served a 12-year prison sentence for killing his mother in 1983.
News of his suicide was given just a few hours after the chairman of the Human Rights Commission of the Council of Europe (CE), Gunnar Jansson, addressed the foreign press at the end of the visit of the CE delegation to Japan.
“The conditions of death row prisoners in Japan are tantamount to a complete denial of human rights, and equivalent to torture.
“Death row prisoners are never informed of their execution until a few hours before it takes place. This means that every day of their lives could be their last for the 54 people currently in this situation in Japan.”Jansson described this as unacceptable psychological torture in any state which defines itself civil.
The chairman of the CE’s Human Rights Commission did not exclude that Japan’s observer status with the Council may be withdrawn. The body’s Parliamentary Assembly will meet in June to examine the situation in observer countries. These are five in total, but only Japan and the United States retain the death penalty.
The CE delegation’s visit to Japan was organised by the Japanese Parliamentary League for Abolition, an association of 70 parliamentarians from various political parties who are pushing for a reform of the death penalty legislation in Japan.
The League took one and a half years to organise the visit because of difficulties posed by the Japanese authorities. The delegation held talks with various authorities, but failed to gain access to death rows. Justice Minister Masahiko Komura said only Parliament can grant permission for death row prisoners to be visited. The Parliamentary League is working to obtain it in view of the forthcoming visit of European MP Emma Bonino.
A Japanese pro-abolition delegation will visit Europe in June. The delegation will be accompanied by Menda, a death row prisoner who was released after 34 years because of lack of legal assistance during the original trial in which he was sentenced to death.