JAPANESE MINISTER VOWS MORE EXECUTIONS

Japan’s justice minister vowed to carry out more executions after the country’s first hangings in over a year, saying the vast majority of the public supported the death penalty. Japan hanged four prisoners on Christmas Day, including two men in their 70s, triggering criticism by some lawmakers, lawyers and members of the minority Christian community. “I am aware of various opinions on the issue, but nearly 80 percent of the people in this country have no objection to the existence of the death penalty,” Justice Minister Jinen Nagase told reporters.
“I don’t have any plan to change the current justice system,” he said. Japan is the only major industrialized nation other than the United States to practice the death penalty. A government poll conducted in 2004 found that only six percent of Japanese opposed capital punishment.