JAPAN CRITICISED AHEAD OF ANTI-DEATH PENALTY DAY

human rights campaigners demanded that Japan impose a moratorium on executions, accusing the country of going against worldwide opinion on the eve of a global day against the death penalty.
The International Federation for Human Rights, a Paris-based coalition of 155 rights groups around the world, released a damning report on the eve of Friday's World Day against the Death Penalty. "Japan continues to condemn criminals to death and incarcerate them up for decades, in prisons where secrecy and isolation are commonplace, in total disregard of the world opinion," wrote the group's general secretary, Florence Bellivier. The federation, which sent a fact-finding mission to Japan, urged lawmakers to call an immediate moratorium on the death penalty and ensure "greater equality" in trials, saying no death penalty case has been retried since 1986.