Brussels, 29/07/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 28 July, Catherine Ashton, the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, deplored the fact that executions have been resumed in Japan, where two people condemned to death have been hung. “I deeply regret the execution by hanging of Hidenori Ogata and Kazuo Shinozawa on 28 July 2010 and the fact that this marks the resumption of executions in Japan after one year during which none took place”, Ashton states in a press release. She points out that the EU is “opposed to the use of capital punishment in all cases and under all circumstances and has consistently called for its universal abolition” as it “believes that the death penalty is cruel and inhuman and that its abolition is essential to protect human dignity”.
Furthermore, Catherine Ashton welcomes the latest efforts by the minister of justice, Keiko Chiba, to foster public debate in Japan about the death penalty and Chiba's decision to set up a panel to study the issue. Ashton calls on the Japanese authorities for a moratorium on the application of the death penalty, pending its complete legal abolition.
Kazuo Shinozawa and Hidenori Ogata are the first prisoners executed by hanging since the centre-left Democrat Party of Japan (PDJ) came to power in September 2009. The former had killed six persons by setting fire to a jewellers in the north-eastern part of Tokyo, and the latter had killed a man and a woman and seriously wounded two others in the north of the capital. Previous hangings, concerning three people condemned to death including one Chinese national, had taken place one year ago to the day, at the time when the conservatives of the Liberal Democrat Party were still running affairs. (L.C./transl.jl)