Japan must stop executing mentally ill prisoners

JAPAN'S continued practice of executing prisoners with mental health problems is inhuman and must come to an end, Amnesty International said today as it published a new report on the treatment of the mentally ill sentenced to death in Japan. The report identified cases where such prisoners had been executed and others where they are at risk of execution. Report summary attached – full version available on request.

“There are 102 people currently on death row in Japan waiting to find out if, or when, they will be put to death,” said Amnesty International Ireland Executive Director Colm O’Gorman. “Many are forced to await execution every day, facing a sentence that could be enforced at any time. Each day could be their last and the arrival of a prison officer with a death warrant would signal their execution within hours. Some live like this year after year, sometimes for decades.

“On August 23, 2007 Japan executed Takezawa Hifumi who had been diagnosed as having mental health problems by doctors acting for both his own defence and the prosecution. On December 7, 2007 Fujima Seiha was executed despite having been found legally incompetent by the Japanese Supreme Court.

“To allow a prisoner to live for prolonged periods under the daily threat of imminent death is cruel, inhuman and degrading,” said James Welsh, Amnesty International’s Health expert and lead author of the report. "The treatment imposed on condemned inmates in Japan means that they face a high risk of developing serious mental health difficulties while on death row and it must be urgently improved.

”Amnesty International found that prisoners on death row are not allowed to talk to one another – a restriction enforced by strict isolation. Contact with family members, lawyers and others can be restricted to as little as five minutes at a time. Apart from visits to the toilet, prisoners are not allowed to move around the cell and must remain seated. Death row prisoners are less likely than other prisoners to have access to fresh air and light and are likely to suffer additional punishments because of behaviour if they break any of the extremely strict rules imposed on them. “The execution process in Japan is extremely secretive,” said Colm O’Gorman .

“The government has a policy of not allowing access to prisoners on death row and denied our request for access. The exact number of death row prisoners with mental health problems in Japan is unknown. The lack of scrutiny by independent mental health experts has led to reliance on secondary testimony and documentation to assess the mental state of those on death row.”