Six Diet members from various political parties opposing...

Six Diet members from various political parties opposing capital punishment met with Justice Minister Mayumi Moriyama to request that she make efforts to have the death penalty abolished and allow them to tour execution sites, Justice Ministry officials said.
Seiichi Kaneda of the Democratic Party of Japan and Nobuto Hosaka of the Social Democratic Party were among the six politicians who met with Moriyama.
Moriyama rejected the request to halt the enforcement of death sentences, saying, "Many people support death penalty system, so I cannot stop it," according to the officials.
However, Moriyama showed a positive attitude toward the latter proposal and was quoted by the officials as saying she would also like to inspect execution sites, including scaffolds.
During the meeting, the group of Diet members claimed that Japan and 38 states of the United States are alone among developed nations in maintaining the capital punishment system.
The group said the UN Human Rights Commission advised Japan to take steps toward abolishing the death penalty, and also pointed out the disparity between the severity of death sentences and indefinite prison terms in Japan, under which convicts are often released from jail on parole after a number of years.
The Justice Ministry has rejected requests to allow outsiders to inspect scaffolds, including those from the parliament league promoting the abolition of the death penalty as well as the European Commission, since it opened them to media in the 1960s.