Nov. 1
JAPAN:
JAPAN SUSPENDS DEATH PENALTY
Japan's new justice minister says he will suspend the death penalty, a
move that would leave the United States as the only major industrialised
country to practice capital punishment.
Justice Minister Seiken Sugiura, who was appointed Monday in a cabinet
reshuffle after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's re-election, said he
would not sign any execution orders because of his personal philosophy,
Kyodo news agency said.
Japan has come under intense international criticism over its executions.
It gives prisoners only several hours' notice before hanging them and does
not forewarn the family, as a way of preventing last-minute appeals.
The justice minister must sign off on hangings, but the ministry by
practice does not identify whom it has executed.
Japan suspended the death penalty from November 1989 to March 1993 when
justice ministers opposed to the capital punishment refused to agree to
executions.
Japan has carried out only 1 execution in the past year, on September 16.
Japanese media reported that the man who was hanged had been convicted of
killing 2 women in robberies.
Human rights group Amnesty International, which opposes the death penalty,
accuses the Japanese government of executing prisoners when parliament is
out of session to ward off criticism.
But the death penalty remains widely supported by the Japanese public.
A government-run survey in February found more than 81 % of Japanese
backed capital punishment.
The most prominent prisoner awaiting the death penalty is Shoko Asahara,
the founder of a doomsday cult that attacked the Tokyo subway with nerve
gas in 1995, killing 12 people and injuring thousands more.
(source: World News)
AUSTRALIA/SINGAPORE:
MPs petition for death row clemency
SINGAPORE'S most senior official in Australia has accepted "with both
hands" a petition from parliamentarians pleading with his Government to
save the life of an Australian man on death row.
Government and opposition MPs today presented Singapore High Commissioner
Joseph Koh with petitions from more than 100 parliamentarians and 300
parliamentary staff calling for the life of 25-year-old Melbourne man
Nguyen Tuong Van to be spared.
Nguyen was caught trafficking heroin in 2002 and faces execution in
Singapore, possibly as early as November 11, after losing a clemency
appeal last month.
Liberal MP Bruce Baird and Labor MP Laurie Ferguson, both members of the
Amnesty International Australia parliamentary group, took the petitions to
the Singapore High Commission and met Mr Koh.
"We emphasised the case of Mr Van Nguyen himself, just saying a young guy,
first time overseas, who did a foolish thing that should not be punished
in terms of the death penalty," Mr Baird said outside the commission in
Canberra.
"We asked him to think of the boy's mother and the family and the impact
it would have.
"We emphasised also that the representation was bi-partisan representation
- over 400 signatures and more would be coming through to them.
"He certainly indicated that he took its significance on board and he
could understand why we felt that way and he said 'I take the petition
with both hands'."
Yesterday in Parliament, both sides of politics united to support a motion
put by Opposition Leader Kim Beazley asking the Singapore Government to
spare Nguyen's life.
Mr Koh also met Nguyen's lawyer, Lex Lasry, QC, yesterday.
Mr Baird maintains there is still hope for Nguyen.
"There's always hope," he said.
(source: The (Adelaide) Advertiser)
