an article by NTA
member in Japan
English
teacher at university
“Dead Man Walking” (1995,
USA, 122 min, by Tim Robbins)
I
am teaching English in two universities, and one day I took up the issues of
capital punishment, especially the cruel punishment that Japan still conducts. For
the first week, we read a short text with regard to the issues to comprehend
the system as a whole. The text says as follows:
U.N. raps Japan over death penalty:
A U. N.
human rights panel urged the government Thursday to consider ending capital
punishment, regardless of public opinion.
The
recommendation is the first in 10 years to be issued to Japan by a panel that
monitors nations to check if they are adhering to the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, and regularly examines the human rights situation
in nations around the world.
In the recommendation, the Human Rights
council expressed concerns about Japan’s death penalty system, noting that the
number of executions is increasing. It also said the time between notifying
death row inmates of their execution and the actual execution is too short, and
criticized the killing of elderly people and people of limited mental capacity.
The U.N. panel recommended Tokyo take
steps to abolish capital punishment and raise public awareness of why its
abolition would be desirable.
It also asked that a new system be established
to review all finalized death sentences, saying an execution order should be
suspended whenever a death row convict files for a fresh trial or amnesty. The
panel stressed that death row inmates should only be detained in solitary confinement
in exceptional circumstances.
(“The Daily Yomiuri” November
1, 2008)
As
the text suggests, Japan has been advised by the U.N. human rights panel that Japan
should ban the capital punishment although generally 85 % of the Japanese people
still strongly approve of this brutal system to exist. This article was written
in 2008, four years ago from now, but still today there is no change in the
system at all due to the government pro-death penalty policy.
My
students had difficulty translating this text, so they seemed they were just satisfied
with what they did; translation, but not comprehended the issues of the inhuman
system as their own. So, I decided to show a movie, “Dead Man Walking” (1995,
USA, 122 min, by Tim Robbins) for the next class. Since this movie is based on
a true story so that I thought this film might be persuasive for them in considering
whether the system is legitimate or not. Yet, at the same time, I was a little
bit worried about if I should use the film for my students because the story
includes many Christian expressions. (Synopsis: A caring
Catholic nun, Sr. Helen Prejean, receives a desperate letter from a death row
inmate, Matthew Poncelet, trying to find help to avoid execution for murder of
a young couple. Over the course of the time to the convict's death, Sr. Helen
begins to show empathy, not only with the pathetic man, but also with the
victims and their families. In the end, Sr. Helen must decide how she will deal
with the paradox of caring for that condemned man while understanding the
heinousness of his crimes). However, most of my students wrote beautiful
reports as their reflections which I was so amazed and moved. Here are some of their
actual comments on the film and the capital punishment;
*”This film was
too heavy for me but I learnt something very important in my life. There are
two murders carried out in the film; one is that the murder committed by
Matthew who was in pursuit of pleasure, the other was the system which end up
with killing the death row in the name of the law. What Matthew did to the
young couple is, of course, unforgivable but at the same time he was a human
being just like us. Many people called Matthew ‘monster’ in the film, but if he
was really monster, how could he care about his mother? ”
*”In the last
part, Mr. Delacroix, a victim’s father was at the scene of Matthew’s funeral. I
was very impressed by this scene. I think the reason why he was at the cemetery
was because he knew that Matthew was also human being just as his lost son, not
an animal. But more importantly, the reason why he was there was, I think, he
was so bothered by Sr. Helen’s existence because he knew her action comes from love.”
*”Before watching
this film, I was a supporter of the death penalty system. But over the course
of the time to Matthew’s execution, I could see how he repented himself on what
he had done. I think he had never had been respected as a man until he
encountered Sr. Helen. He was from poor family background with divorced parents
so we have to bear in mind its circumstances behind those who committed crimes.
We should not simply point our
finger to those who fail into crime.”
*”It is very
controversial issues over how we consider about the capital punishment.
Actually, it was my first time to consider this social issue in earnest. I
still do not know the answer, but I think killing anybody is wrong.”
Today in Japan, about
120 convicts are currently awaiting for execution. The death row inmates are
kept in solitary confinement in 7 detention centers throughout Japan and they
are notified on the morning of the execution day that they will be executed, usually
about one hour before the execution (this is why the U.N human rights panel has
criticized Japan for the psychological strain on inmates and their families
over the uncertainty of the execution timing). Execution is by hanging. 11 out
of the total death row inmates are former members of the Aum Shinrikyo (“Supreme Truth”,
the best known is its 56-years-old founder Shoko Asahara) cult which are
responsible for the nerve gas attacks in Matsumoto City, Nagano prefecture in
June 1994 and the Tokyo subway system in March 1995 in which 20 people died and
thousands more suffered varying degrees of after-effects. It speculates that
the Democratic Party of Japan-led government may now proceed with death
sentences against its founder, Asahara and possibly some of the other cultists.
In here, I would like to introduce an amazing man, Kono Yoshiyuki, who is the
most vociferous defender of the Aum convicts and also known as its most famous
victim. Kono was the first responder to the 1994 sarin nerve gas attack in Matsumoto,
which soon brought him under police suspicion as having synthesized sarin by
mixing pesticides he store in a garage in his garden. Although vociferous
statements by chemists that such an achievement was impossible, the police interrogated
him intensively and leaked some misinformation about him to the media.
Therefore, he was targeted by hate mails and threatening calls. The gas left
his wife, totally disabled. She was in a semi-vegetative state for 14 years,
until dying at age 60 in August 2008. He moved to Kagoshima prefecture (the
Kyushu district) and has visited Tokyo’s Kosuge Prison for meetings with four
of the Matsumoto perpetrators and received their apologies. Many people in Japan
find his sympathy for the condemned cultist incomprehensive, but he reminds
them that he knows how it feels to have been a crime suspect and the target of
attacks by the mass media. He said “Executing them absolutely won’t bring me
any sense of relief. To go through life holding a feeling of hatred is a
formula for misery.”
I introduced Mr. Kono
in this class after collecting their reports and one of my students said “Mr.
Kono is the picture of Sr. Helen!”
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