Japan has executed four prisoners this year — each in secret

Japan has been condemned after it hanged two men seeking retrials in a secret execution.

Teruhiko Seki, 44, who was convicted of murder and robbery, and Kiyoshi Matsui, 69, convicted of murder, were executed early on Tuesday morning at Tokyo Detention Centre.

Amnesty International called the executions “an abhorrent and bloody stain on Japan’s human rights record”.

There are more than 120 death row prisoners detained in Japan, based on the latest figures from the Ministry of Justice.

The executions take the total in Japan in 2017 to four, after the country executed two men in July. It is applied, nearly always, for murder only and executions are carried out by hanging.

According to Amnesty, prisoners are typically given only a few hours’ notice of their execution, and some are given no warning at all.

Their families, lawyers and the public are usually notified only after the hanging has taken place.

“Once again, the Japanese government has shown contempt for the right to life,” said Roseann Rife, East Asia Research Director at the charity

“The government is deluding itself if it thinks the death penalty is an effective tool to deliver justice. This is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment – a fact the vast majority of the world’s countries have recognised,” added Rife.

Seki was 19 when the crime was committed, and both were seeking retrials at the time of execution.

It takes the number of people executed under the current government to 21 since 2012.

It is ten years since the UN General Assembly adopted its first resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

Some of the most recent countries to abolish all capital punishment are Mongolia (2017) Guinea (2016), Nauru (2016), Congo (2015) and Suriname (2015).

Just four countries that are considered to be industrialised still execute criminals, those being the US, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 20 people were executed in the United States in 2016, the lowest number since 1991. So far, 23 have been executed in the US this year.

Amnesty added that “executions in Japan remain shrouded in secrecy but the government cannot hide the fact that it is on the wrong side of history, as the majority of the world’s states have turned away from the death penalty.”