Action mail : Condamnez l’exécution de prisonniers atteints de maladie mentale au Japon

Posté par : Benoit Priem le 10 septembre 2009

Mots clés :

En cours

En complétant les champs vides du formulaire ci-dessous, vous allez envoyer un courrier électronique à Madame Keiko Chiba, Ministre de la justice.

Votre Nom et Prénom : *

Votre Email : *

Le sujet :

Le message :

Dear Minister,

I welcome your appointment as Minister of Justice, and I know you are a death penalty abolitionist

I am writing to express my concern about the death penalty in Japan and particularly that Japan continues to execute prisoners who are mentally ill in contravention of international standards.

Japan is one of only two developed industrialized countries that retains the death penalty and continues to carry out executions (the other is the USA). This is despite the clear, longstanding and worldwide move towards restriction or abolition of the death penalty. Bucking this trend, the rate of executions in Japan has increased over the last few years. United Nations human rights mechanisms have expressed serious concerns about the harsh conditions for death row inmates in Japan, but to date no significant improvements have been made by the Japanese government. The death penalty is surrounded by secrecy in Japan: lawyers face major obstacles in obtaining information about prisoners, death row prisoners and their relatives are not told in advance of their impending execution, and there is a general lack of transparency in criminal justice procedures.

Amnesty International is calling on the Japanese government to immediately introduce a moratorium on executions with a view to reviewing laws which permit the use of the death penalty.

I urge you to bring Japanese law surrounding the death penalty in line with international standards, in particular, by taking the following steps that:

- ensure that all prisoners are given proper and impartial medical assessments following their arrest;
- ensure that legal counsel have a right to seek and receive information on the health of prisoners under sentence of death;
- initiate an independent review of cases where there is credible evidence that prisoners are mentally ill and could fall within the scope of Article 479 of the Code of Criminal Procedure;
- end the possibility of prisoners with current appeals for retrial being liable to execution before their appeal is heard;
- ensure that both prisoners and families are given information about execution dates in advance;
- end the routine isolation of prisoners under sentence of death;
- provide meaningful voluntary activities for prisoners under sentence of death.

I also urge you to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty in line with the 2007 UN General Assembly resolution 62/149.

I would be grateful if you could inform me of the steps taken to fulfil these commitments.

Thank you for your attention on such an important issue.

Yours faithfully,

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