Target: Hideki Makihara, Minister of Justice for Japan
Goal: Abolish capital punishment in wake of exoneration of longest-serving death row inmate.
Iwao Hakamada earned a spot in Guiness World Records for a distinction no person would likely want. For the past 46 years, Hakamada has served on Japan’s death row. He was once the world’s longest-tenured death row inmate, but no more. The former prisoner was freed a decade ago after new evidence came to light in the quadruple murder for which he was convicted. And now, a court – in a stinging rebuke of the investigation that ultimately convicted the man – has formally exonerated him.
But the 88-year-old endured years in solitary confinement and immense mental trauma before he ever saw the light of day. Other death row inmates later found innocent have not always been so fortunate. Records indicate inmates have been executed and later found to be not guilty of their crimes. Many other inmates have either died during appeals or – worse yet – gone to the execution chamber declaring their innocence with their dying breaths. And aside from Hakamada, at least four other Japanese death row inmates have been exonerated and released from prison.
Japan is one of the only developed democracies in the world that still carries out capital punishment. Sign the petition below to urge an end to a practice that is resulting in deadly miscarriages of justice.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Minister Hideki,
The exoneration of four death penalty defendants by the Supreme Court resulted in a moratorium on capital punishment in Japan. Will the notoriety of admitting that this nation subjected an innocent man to nearly five decades of solitary confinement and mental anguish prove to be the landmark moment that finally ends the death penalty in Japan? Almost every other developed democracy in the world has weighed this decision and concluded that the state-sponsored end of even one innocent life is not worth calls for deadly retribution.
Please do not subject the 100-plus individuals currently condemned to death to similar anguish. Join the ranks of the many world leaders who have abolished an archaic dictate that has never been proven to save lives but has definitively ended innocent lives.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: Ron Lach
13 Signatures