By Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Feb 26 2007 (IPS)

Last Christmas Day is etched into the memory of Kaoru Okashita, 60, a Japanese prisoner on death row. In the distance he heard the footfall of guards marching steadily towards his cell early in the morning – and then miraculously passing by without halting.

”I thought the time had finally come for me to die,” Okashita wrote to his friend and poetry teacher Keiko Mitsumoto. ”When the guards passed my door, I heaved a sigh of relief.” Okashita and Mitsumoto have been exchanging letters through prison bars since 2004.

Okashita had every reason to feel blessed. On Dec. 25 of last year, four of his fellow death row inmates were hanged, including Yoshie Fujinami, 72, a semi-invalid who could hardly stand, according to activists.

Their executions took place after a lull of 15 months. The new justice minister Jinen Nagase was showing he had no qualms unlike his Buddhist predecessor about signing execution orders. Nagase is an open supporter of capital punishment.

”It is important to consider the feelings of the victims and the public,” he has said. ”The social order has to be maintained.”

Such strong views reflect the majority of Japanese public opinion.

But among these opponents are a growing number of individuals actively taking a stand. Mitsumoto, 61, is one. A teacher of tanka (poetry), Mitsumoto responded to a letter from Okashita requesting her to accept his verse.

”I oppose the death penalty not as an issue of justice but simply on the basis that life is precious,” Mitsumoto told IPS. ”Through Okashita’s poetry and letters, I know that he has learnt to value life again and that is why I want him to live.”

The touching story of the friendship between a convicted for murdering two people in 1989, and his sympathetic poetry teacher became public here with the December publication of a tanka anthology, ‘The Beginning of the End’. Edited by Mitsumoto, it includes poems sent to her by Okashita in letters he sends once or twice a month.

Okashita’s poems express deep remorse for his crimes and his fear of social rejection.

Opponents of the death penalty agree that the Japanese public is rigid and unforgiving. This explains the near-total support for the death penalty, they say.

”Japan’s extremely conservative sense of social order reinforces the view that people who commit crimes deserve the severest of punishments,” said Misaki Yagishita of Amnesty Japan. ”This is why there is still lingering support for the death penalty. It’s seen the best way of ridding society of criminals.”

Japan’s anti-death penalty activists are focusing their campaign on the country’s method of execution. They said that death by hanging is especially cruel. It can result in decapitation.

They also accuse the authorities of a callous disregard for the rights of the person awaiting execution. Singled out is the ‘unjustifiable’ practice of keeping secret the date of the execution from the death row inmate and family. Testament to this practice is Okashita’s post-Christmas letter to his poetry teacher.

Other death row inmates have also told of how they listen for the early morning footsteps of their guards – their only way of knowing of their approaching execution. Only after the hanging will their families be informed.

Campaigning anti-death penalty activists are now taking their campaign into the courts. Recently, Shuichi Adachi, a lawyer based in Hiroshima, filed a legal challenge to the practice of barring death row prisoners access to their lawyers. The condemned are only allowed to meet with their immediate family and religious representatives once or twice a month.

”The conditions for prisoners serving life sentences are much more lenient,” Adachi said. He supports replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment. ”They can meet with their lawyers. But the crimes committed by the two groups can be similar. This is unfair.”

Activists are bracing themselves for more executions after the last ones at Christmas. At the end of February the number of inmates awaiting execution in Japan reached 100. Last year saw a big increase in the number of death sentences – some 21 – as Japanese courts took a tougher stand on violent crimes.

Activists are also concerned at the likely effect of a new move by the justice ministry to allow crime victims to speak in court. Lawyers have protested that this will fuel passions and could lead to yet more death sentences.

But campaigners are expecting more active support from religious groups in their effort to change public opinion. Oomoto-kyo, a Shinto-based religious group that is opposed to capital punishment, is planning more engagement, they say.

“Executions can be tackled by counter-arguments and focusing on the value of life. This is an especially respected concept in Japanese religions,” said Katsuya Kimura, a representative in its international division. “We are planning several conferences with other religious groups to reach a consensus on the strategy we should follow,” he confirmed.

Until now, Japanese religious organisations have been divided on the death penalty issue. Most Shinto groups, Japan’s indigenous faith support the death penalty while Christian and Buddhist organisations have been firmly against it.

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