Life on death row in Japan is hell: the cries of death row inmates

In a brilliant article, David Mc Neill reports for the Independent on an innocent survivor of the Japanese death row system.

Anyone who still has the slightest doubt as to whether the death penalty is an inhumane punishment should read M. Sakae Menda's story.  It adds to the vivid testimonies recounted in a book published earlier this year, revealing the secret lives and unheard voices of people on death row in Japan.

These prisoners are not told their execution date until the day they will be hanged, thus leading them to live in terror that each day could be their last. Deprived of contact with the outside world, they remain in solitary confinement for years, sometimes for decades, before being executed. Yet when the time comes, they will only have a few minutes to gather their affairs before facing death.

One inmate said: “I feel scared every day, while I remember the faces of the victims whenever I feel like living. . .” Torn between the despair of what they have done and the anguish of having to live each day as if it was their last, inmates are driven to the brink of insanity.

“Waiting to die is a kind of torture", said M. Sakae Menda, on death row for 34 years for a crime he didn’t commit.  M. Sakae Menda could be, however, the luckiest man on death row in Japan, as he is also the first man ever freed from there.

Others haven’t been so lucky: Japan has an astonishing 99 per cent conviction rate, and many more innocents are surely standing on death row, awaiting execution for a crime they didn’t commit.

Hearing fellow inmates dragged to their death can itself drive prisoners insane. In the case of M. Menda, it caused him to scream so long that he was punished for two months , and forced to eat like an animal with his hands cuffed. His wife Tamae calls it a miracle that he managed to remain sane.

M. Menda, remaining pessimistic, testified: “The condemned used to be given 24 hours' notice before execution; now they only get a few hours."

Another death row inmate said: "Inmates have been hanged in a building where many people lead
 their lives, but people are laughing as if nothing happened . . . I have 
to say it's abnormal."


How long will it be before the death penalty is definitely classified as a “cruel and unusual punishment”? Maybe the answer is: as long as people take to pay attention.

More stories from Japan's Death Row in Please do not extinguish the spark of Life (Inochi no Hi wo Kesnaide), Forum 90,  140p,  Japan.