Dead Men Walking

Japan's death penalty is cruel, secretive and out of step with much of the developed world say its opponents. As a record 97 men and 5 women await the hangman's noose, one man alive and free who knows its true horrors speaks.After breakfast on Christmas Day, 2006, three Japanese pensioners and a middle-aged former taxi-driver were given an hour to live. The men were told to clean their cells, say their prayers and write a will. Fujinami Yoshio, 75, scribbled a note to his supporters before he was taken to the gallows of the Tokyo Detention Center in a wheelchair. "I cannot walk by myself, I am ill and yet you still kill such a person," he wrote. "I should be the last person executed

Sociology · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Demography · Japanese History and Culture · Psychology · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies