As most people reading this blog know, Japanese officials usually carry out executions before informing the media or next of kin. What I didn’t know until reading this article in Mainichi Online was that Justice Minister Hatoyama has been carrying out executions at a pace of once every two months!
Here is the article: Four Death Row Inmates Executed
It also includes a description of the crimes commited by the four executed inmates.
I’ve heard that groups like Amnesty International were opposed to the way that the government here carries out executions. They are always done in private, and usually, the next of kin is only notified when they are told to come to the prison and claim the body.
We’ll have to check the news to see if another execution is carried out this June, and whether that will inspire some protests about the ways in which they were done.