Nine executive members of the Committee on Judicial...

Nine executive members of the Committee on Judicial Affairs of Japan's lower house of parliament visited a new execution chamber at the Tokyo Detention Centre. It was reportedly the first time in three decades the justice ministry had allowed people outside the penal and justice systems to look at a death chamber. In Japan, capital punishment is carried out by hanging. "The place was new ... so clean and simple," Takashi Kawamura, a lawmaker from the opposition Democratic Party, told AFP after the visit, adding the visit prompted a sense of sorrow in him. "Since I am convinced there are false convictions (for capital offences), we should abolish punishment that removes the possibility of life," he said. There was a small wooden carved Buddhist statue in a small room leading to the chamber to allow inmates to make their last prayer, according to lawmakers who took part in the short trip. The chamber itself was fitted with a lilac-colour carpet and equipped with a pulley-like device at the ceiling for attaching the rope, although there was no noose in place at the time of the visit. A small trapdoor in the floor opened down onto a four-metre (13 foot) drop. No one had yet been executed in the chamber since it was built in March 2003. Kawamura said some of the nine lawmakers supported death penalty but the committee had decided to ask the justice ministry to allow the visit as members should view the chamber before discussing whether capital punishment was appropriate. "I hope this visit will serve as the first step towards allowing the general public to take a look at an execution chamber and make the Japanese people think about death penalty," Kawamura said.