The death penalty outliers: Japan carries out execution, India stays one

Japan is often cited as the only industrialized democracy other than the United States that retains the death penalty, though a few other places — notably South Korea and India — retain capital punishment on the books but almost never carry it out. Today, Japan carried out its first execution since 2010:  The men—Yasuaki Uwabe, ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

Japan is often cited as the only industrialized democracy other than the United States that retains the death penalty, though a few other places -- notably South Korea and India -- retain capital punishment on the books but almost never carry it out. Today, Japan carried out its first execution since 2010

Japan is often cited as the only industrialized democracy other than the United States that retains the death penalty, though a few other places — notably South Korea and India — retain capital punishment on the books but almost never carry it out. Today, Japan carried out its first execution since 2010

The men—Yasuaki Uwabe, 48, Tomoyuki Furusawa, 46, and Yasutoshi Matsuda, 44—were hanged in three different prisons in Tokyo, Hiroshima and Fukuoka. Uwabe drove his car into Shimonoseki Station in Yamaguchi Prefecture and then knifed people nearby, killing five, in 1999. Furusawa murdered his in-laws and stepson in Yokohama in 2002, while Matsuda killed two women in southern Miyazaki prefecture in 2001.

Following Japan’s last execution in 2010, Justice Minister Keiko Chiba — a longtime death penalty opponent who briefly suspended the practice after coming into power in 2009 — ordered a nationwide review of the practice. While the ruling Democratic Party is generally opposed to the death penalty, polls show a majority of Japanese still support it. 

Meanwhile in India, the execution of Balwant Singh Rajoana — a Sikh militant convicted of the 1995 assassination of the chief minister of Punjab — has been put on hold following a clemency petition by a Sikh religious group to President Pratibha Patil. His hanging had been scheduled for Saturday. 

While a handful of people, including convicted Mumbai attacks gunman Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab are on death row in India, the practice is so rare that state governments don’t even have executioners on staff. 

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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