Japanese man's acquittal after 48 years on death row puts nation's death penalty policy under spotlight

By Esther Linder with wires

ABC. AU



Iwao Hakamada was on death row for decades before his murder conviction was overturned. (Kyodo News via AP)

On Thursday, an 88-year-old Japanese man named Iwao Hakamada was acquitted of murder and released after 48 years on death row.

He could be the longest-serving death row inmate in the world, human rights groups say.

He was accused of murdering four people in 1966 but was exonerated after the evidence that initially convicted him was found to be planted or fabricated by prosecutors.

The case has sparked questions about the use of capital punishment in Japan and across the world.
What was the case against him?


Mr Hakamada was convicted of murder for the 1966 killing of an executive and three of his family members, and their home in central Japan being set on fire.
Lawyers, prosecutors, jurors and more believed Marcellus Williams may have been innocent. Missouri executed him anyway

The 55-year-old was sentenced to death in 2001 for killing Felicia Gayle, a former newspaper reporter found dead in her gated community home.

He was sentenced to death in 1968 by Shizuoka District Court, but was not executed due to the lengthy appeal and retrial process in Japan's notoriously slow-paced criminal justice system.

Following his arrest, Mr Hakamada initially denied the accusations, but then confessed. He later said his confession was forced during a violent interrogation by police.

"I have nothing to do with the case … I am innocent," he wrote in a letter to his mother while on trial in 1967.

He spent 48 years behind bars — more than 45 of them on death row — making him the world's longest-serving death row inmate, according to Amnesty International.
Acquitted after 48 years


Mr Hakamada was forced to wait 27 years for his appeal for a retrial to be heard, which was initially denied before a second request was granted in 2014.

A series of appeals through Japan's complex judicial system resulted in a Supreme Court decision to retry Mr Hakamada in October 2023, with the final decision being made this week.

On Thursday, the court concluded that five pieces of bloodstained clothing that investigators claimed to have found hidden in a tank of fermented soybean paste, or miso, a year after Mr Hakamada's arrest must have been planted, and did not match the accused's DNA.


Supporters of Iwao Hakamada celebrated outside the Japanese court after the 88-year-old was acquitted of murder. (Kyodo via Reuters)

Thursday's ruling also blamed the prosecutors for forcing Mr Hakamada into a false confession citing an "inhumane" interrogation lasting days.

Hideyo Ogawa, Mr Hakamada's lawyer, praised the ruling as "groundbreaking" for clearly stating that the prosecution fabricated key evidence at the beginning.

The court found that Mr Hakamada was not the culprit, Mr Ogawa said.

After Mr Hakamada was sentenced to death, he expressed fear and anger at being falsely accused.

"When I go to sleep in a soundless solitary cell every night, I sometimes cannot help cursing God," he wrote to his family.

"I have not done anything wrong .


"What a cold-blooded act to inflict such cruelty on me."

Most of Mr Hakamada's 48 years in prison, before being released in 2014 pending his retrial, were spent in solitary confinement.
Death penalty as punishment


Japan, alongside the US and Singapore, is one of a few democracies that continue to execute people as punishment for some crimes.

The case has drawn attention to and criticism of Japan's legal system.
UN experts call for first US execution by nitrogen gas to be halted

Photo shows A low angle view of the outside fence of Elmore Correctional Facility at daytime

Plans to execute a convicted murderer by asphyxiating him with nitrogen may amount to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" or even torture, experts say.

Japan Bar Association chairperson Reiko Fuchigami urged the government and parliament on Thursday to promptly take steps to abolish the death penalty and lower hurdles for retrials.

"The Hakamada case clearly shows the cruelty of the wrongful death penalty, and the tragedy should never be repeated," she said.

An overwhelming majority of the Japanese public supports executions, according to a survey by the government.

Executions are carried out in secrecy in Japan and prisoners are not informed of their fate until the morning they are hanged.

In 2007, Japan began disclosing the names of those executed and some limited details of their crimes.

According to Amnesty International, 115 people are on death row in Japan. The last execution was carried out in July 2022.

The organisation's East Asia researcher, Boram Jang, said the Hakamada verdict was a "an important recognition of the profound injustice" Mr Hakamada endured.

“As we celebrate this long-overdue day of justice for Hakamada, we are reminded of the irreversible harm caused by the death penalty," she said.

"We strongly urge Japan to abolish the death penalty to prevent this from happening again."

Amnesty International estimated 1,153 people were executed in 2023, excluding China, with the majority of executions happening in Iran.

Australia abolished the death penalty in 1985. A federal law passed in 2010 prohibits its reintroduction.

WWIII

‘Asian NATO’ supporter Ishiba to become Japan’s prime minister

Shigeru Ishiba said Japan needs to play a ‘great role’ in its alliance with the US.

By Taejun Kang for RFA
2024.09.27
Taipei, Taiwan

Former Japanese defense minister Shigeru Ishiba waves as he is elected as new head of the ruling party in the Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership vote and is set to become Japan’s next prime minister in Tokyo, Japan, Sept. 27, 2024. Kyodo/via Reuters

Veteran Japanese lawmaker Shigeru Ishiba, who supports the creation of an “Asia version of NATO”, was set on Friday to become prime minister after winning a closely fought contest to lead the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Since the LDP holds a parliamentary majority, the next party leader will  replace Fumio Kishida as prime minister. Kishida  announced his intention to step down in August. 

“We must believe in the people, speak the truth with courage and sincerity, and work together to make Japan a safe and secure country where everyone can live with a smile once again,” Ishiba said in a brief speech to lawmakers after the party vote.

The LDP chose Ishiba as Japan grapples with increasing security threats and risk of war in the region, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and China’s growing military assertiveness.

The 67-year-old Ishiba, who said changes in the security environment were the reason he announced his candidacy, has been strong on deterrence.

The former defense minister expressed his desire to create an “Asian version of NATO” and bring equality to the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement.

“Ukraine is not a member of NATO. It is not hard to imagine that this prompted President [Vladimir] Putin’s decision,” he said, stressing the need to build a collective security system in Asia, at a news conference on Sept. 10, referring to the Russian leader’s decision to send troops into Ukraine.

Shigeru Ishiba celebrates after he was elected as new head of Japan's ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership election Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Tokyo, Japan. (Hiro Komae/Pool via Reuters)

While Ishiba does not question the importance of the security alliance with the U.S., he has said Japan needs to play a greater role in the alliance and have a larger say in how American troops are deployed in Japan. 

For instance, he wrote in his 2024 memoir that “Japan is still not a truly independent country” because of the “asymmetry” of its dependence on America for its security.

Ishiba also announced he would consider revising the SOFA, or Status of Forces Agreement, which sets the rules for U.S. military operations in Japan. The agreement was concluded when the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty was revised in 1960 and has remained unchanged.

Ishiba said that as LDP president, and thus prime minister, he would seek to establish a base in the U.S. to train Japan’s Self-Defense Forces.

He argued that SOFA should be at the same level as an agreement that would be established upon the creation of such an SDF base in the U.S.

“If we are going to revise SOFA, it has to be something that will strengthen the alliance and improve the regional security environment,” said Ishiba. 

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Ishiba is known as a strong backer of Taiwanese democracy while also calling for deeper engagement with China.

He wrote in his memoir that conflating the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a possible Chinese attack on Taiwan was driven by emotion, not a pragmatic assessment of Chinese threats and the impact on Japan.

The nail-biter party election consisted of two rounds. In the first round, the  368 LDP members in the legislature and 368 rank-and-file members cast  ballots. In a second runoff round between the top two candidates, 415 votes were cast.

Ishiba came second, after economic security minister Sanae Takaichi, in the first round but he beat Takaichi in the runoff by 21 votes.

“I want to protect Japan, protect the people, protect the local regions, and want to be the LDP that follows the rules,” Ishiba said after the first vote.

He will be officially announced as prime minister at a special legislative session on Oct. 1.

Edited by Mike Firn.

Shigeru Ishiba is chosen as Japan's next prime minister after winning leadership vote of ruling LDP party

By North Asia correspondent James Oaten in Tokyo

Former Japanese defence minister Shigeru Ishiba accepts the top job following the party vote. (Kyodo via Reuters)

Japan's next prime minister will be maverick regional politician Shigeru Ishiba after the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) elected him the new leader following the news Prime Minister Fumio Kishida would step down.

Mr Ishiba, a veteran politician and former defence minister, won the top job after a runoff against Sanae Takaichi in an internal ballot after none of the original nine hopefuls won enough support to win the ballot outright.

Had Ms Takaichi won, she would have become Japan's first female prime minister.

The vote was sparked after Mr Kishida announced he would no longer seek the top job at the scheduled party meeting, following months of low approval ratings and a donations scandal that embroiled high-ranking politicians.

Shigeru Ishiba won the leadership vote in a runoff election for the Liberal Democratic Party. (Hiro Komae via Reuters)

Before the final vote among LDP politicians, Mr Ishiba vowed to clean up the party's image.

"We will put an end to the widespread distrust in the LDP," he said.


"Once the election is over, we will put our hearts into protecting Japan, local areas, rules and the people of Japan."

Mr Ishiba, 67, has tried and failed to secure the top job many times.

He is known as a maverick, speaking against the party when he feels necessary, which has made him popular among voters.

"He appears on television media quite a lot to give very frank and honest opinions, including criticism of his own government, and that has made him popular with voters," said Jeff Hall, an expert in politics at Kanda University.

Shigeru Ishiba acknowledged his win after he was elected as new head of Japan's ruling LDP party. (Hiro Komae via Reuters)

He hails from a regional part of Japan suffering population decline and has spoken about the need to help all of Japan, and not just the big cities.

"He has this sort of idealistic focus on helping every part of Japan, and he is also very much a policy expert-kind of politician.

"He loves to talk about defence policy, natural disaster relief policies."

But his criticism of the party, including leaving the LDP before, has hurt him in the past, with some fellow LDP members calling him a traitor.
Ishiba beat out would-be first female PM

Mr Ishiba beat out Ms Takaichi, 63, the economic security minister and a hardline conservative who has praised Margaret Thatcher as a role model.

A protege of former prime minister, the late Shinzo Abe, Ms Takaichi talked about stimulating the economy and maintaining ultra-low interest rates.

But there was concern her conservative views were out of line with the electorate.

"She's extremely conservative on social views, far to the right of most Japanese voters, on things like gender, on same-sex marriage, on the issue of whether or not women should be allowed to have a separate family name when they get married," Mr Hall said.

Sanae Takaichi would have been Japan's first female prime minister. (Hiro Komae via Reuters)

She also advocated visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, which honours Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals.

Her position would infuriate China and South Korea, a country Japan has tried to build relations with.

"She is also very, very hawkish towards China," Mr Hall said.

One of the initial frontrunners in the race was Shinjiro Koizumi, son of former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi.

At 42, Mr Koizumi would have become Japan's youngest prime minister were he successful, but a series of gaffs led many to conclude he was too inexperienced.


"He thinks he can be the Japanese Trudeau, and he's young, he's handsome," Mr Hall said.

"There are a lot of jokes and memes that depict him as an air-headed person who doesn't really have much substance to him."


Japanese former environment minister Shinjiro Koizumi, the 43-year-old son of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, speaks at a press conference ahead of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership election in Tokyo, Japan, September 6, 2024. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon (Reuters: Kim Kyung-Hoon)
How the votes were counted

The LDP leadership is elected from a 50-50 split between party members, of which there are just under 1.1 million, and its 368 members of parliament, the Diet.

If no candidate wins enough support from the initial vote, a runoff is held that is only open to the members of parliament.

This means a politician less popular with the public can be elected, as factional heads will get the ultimate say.

"Kishida was a classic example of a leader selected not because of his appeal to voters, but because factions within his party wanted to block another politician from becoming PM," said Mr Hall.


Officials show the result of the first voting to election commission at the leadership election. (Hiro Komae via Reuters)

In this runoff, Ms Takaichi was more popular in the initial vote, achieving 72 votes from Diet members while Mr Ishiba won 46.

But among party members, the vote was much closer, with Ms Takaichi beating her rival by one vote.
Snap election expected

Japan's political system is renowned for its relatively high rotation of prime ministers, yet one where the electorate continues to re-elect the same political party.

The LDP has ruled Japan almost uninterrupted in its post-war years.

It lost majority for only a few months in 1993 and was out of government between 2009 and 2013, losing to the centre-left Democratic Party of Japan.

But those years were marred by internal fighting and the the centre-left party failed to deliver on key policies, prompting voters to return the LDP, viewing them as the more experienced party to run the country.

In recent years, the government has been riddled with scandal. The most explosive were revelations senior members of government failed for years to declare donations.

While Mr Kishida wasn't directly involved in the donations scandal, voters saw him as unable to fix the problem, and his voter approval ratings tanked.


Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (centre) announced he would no longer seek the top job after months of low approval ratings and a donations scandal. (Hiro Komae via Reuters)

Despite this, the LDP is still expected to win the next general election.

"The LDP, at least, has the experienced people and the know-how to run a government without messing things up, at least in an opinion of many people," Mr Hall said.

"The various scandals of the LDP are, of course, abhorrent, and people are very annoyed by them, but a lot of them are petty corruption scandals and various other scandals that don't cause the country to grind to a halt, or they don't involve breaking major promises to voters."

The main opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, has appointed former prime minister Yoshihiko Noda as its leader, to try and unite the opposition forces and appear as a reliable pair of hands.

Mr Ishiba is expected to call a snap election, meaning Japan will be returning to the polls in late October or November.

The Class Struggle in the US Since the Civil War

Richard Moser

September 27, 2024

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An innovative, wide-ranging, thought-provoking account of class struggle in the US since the Civil War, Jon Jeter’s latest book Class War in America: How the Elites Divide The Nation by Asking: Are You A Worker Or Are You White? is both redemptive and damning. He has rendered the tale forcefully but with a charm and grace that frees the reader to face the terrible beauty of class war in America. It’s a story that pulls you in and doesn’t let you go, not just because it’s so well done and so deeply researched but because Jeter guides us on an exploration of the primary issue confronting class struggle in the US — the long and winding relationship between race and class.

The question that reverberates throughout this book is for workers of all colors, but for people like me, as children of the white working class, we must confront our own deeply contradictory position:

America’s interpretation of capitalism…demands a hard choice from its European settlers: Are you a worker, or are you white?*

How we answer that question means everything.

New History 

The first thing I love about this book is that I have learned much about US history since the Civil War. Jeter has revised the accepted timelines and interpretations by excavating tales rarely told and events on the periphery of historical awareness. As a people’s journalist, his chapters also give voice — and often the last word — to the otherwise unheard.

Jeter does not offer a simple linear narration as he travels through time and space. Jumping back and forth between historical eras with ease, the author leaves no doubt about the relevance of his material or the persistence of racial betrayal or class solidarity. Some readers may suffer from jet lag or whiplash, but buckle up—it’s a new kind of history that we desperately need.

Jeter’s account brings us up to the present (with insight on more topics than this review can touch on). He reveals the pattern of solidarity and betrayal emerging during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Jeter introduces us to the question that informs his work by telling the story of two crucial events—the Battle of the Crater and the rise of a third party, the Virginia “Readjusters.”

The Battle of the Crater was a botched, suicidal nightmare in which white racial solidarity triumphed, and Black soldiers were murdered by their own “brothers in arms.”

And then, in a horrific demonstration of racial solidarity, scores of white Union soldiers turned their bayonets, knives, and sidearms on the Colored troops they had fought alongside just moments earlier. “The cry was raised that we would all be killed if we were captured among the negroes,” one white soldier recalled later.

Jeter continues:

A white proletariat literally dug a hole for itself and managed to escape only with the help of the African Americans they had shunned and marginalized. But once the white settler has climbed from the chasm, they do not repay their Black rescuers with gratitude but a knife thrust in the back…. the worst racial massacre of the Civil War shines a spotlight on our maddening national metanarrative…[E]very victory is undone, every insurrection put down, with the 99 percent in full retreat…and the betrayal of a radical Black vanguard by their white allies who—like the Union soldiers at the Battle of the Crater—ineluctably choose “race” when the going gets tough.

Yet, the author also finds a very different flower in the same Virginia soil—a brief but shining example of the rise of a people’s third party—the Readjusters. The Readjusters championed the working class’s interests, actually got things done, and provided a model for bi-racial movements in other southern states.

The Readjusters remain the most powerful independent political movement in American history…. seizing control of the state legislature, the Congressional delegation, both U.S. Senate seats, city halls in Richmond, Danville, Petersburg, and the governor’s mansion, all within a single election cycle.

The Readjusters bucked hard times, white supremacy, and the bankers to form a biracial political party.  They worked with Black Republicans to push through real reforms in 1880s Virginia.

Class solidarity or racial betrayal? So, the story of Class War in America unfolds.

The Mid-20th Century

Jeter makes a compelling case that the defense of the Scottsboro Boys was the catalyst for America’s last period of reform and revolution that lasted from the 1930s to the end of the 1970s. An international solidarity movement rose to defend a group of innocent young black men who faced legal lynching after they were falsely accused of rape. Cross-racial solidarity in the face of this injustice and the visionary work of the Communist Party that lead the defense put the New Deal back into the hands of everyday people and a principled left opposition where it belongs.

[T]he arrest of the Scottsboro Boys triggered 50 years of tumult in America’s class relations, as a critical mass of whites forfeited their racial privileges to join with their Black co-workers and fight the wealthiest 1 percent who oppressed them all. Until roughly the moment that Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the nation’s 40th president, employees went blow for blow with their employers, modernizing the state in the process.

As we know, this revolution did not occur unopposed. By the mid-1970s, a corporate counterattack was launched to lower wages, impose austerity, and breathe new life into the embattled empire.

Chicago, Counter-Revolution and the Election of 2024

Jeter makes clear that the book’s central question is not posed to whites alone.

The people of Chicago made a last stand against the resurgence of corporate control by organizing a multi-year effort to elect Harold Washington mayor in 1983. But, as the half-century of upheaval and progress waned, a class of elite Black politicians rose to “isolate the vanguard of the revolution: the African American working class.”

If there is one book to read before the 2024 election, this would be it.

Jeter’s recounting of Chicago politics puts Obama and his hand-picked successor, Kamla Harris, in their larger political context. The grassroots movement that put Harold Washington in the Mayor’s office was overshadowed by the rise of well-financed, well-connected Black politicians, including one who would one day occupy the White House.

Absent an understanding of Chicago’s first Black mayor you cannot begin to make sense of the Republic’s first Black president. Obama owed his electoral triumphs to a top-down political movement that was antithetical to the grassroots organizing that produced Washington, and each man governed accordingly. As such, the pro-business policies of Black politicians such as Obama, Kamala Harris, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, New Jersey’s U.S. Senator Cory Booker, former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser…can only be explained as a response to an insurrection, and the radical Black polity that was its engine. Or, to put it another way, Obama was the figurehead for a counterrevolution that takes dead aim at its foes in the American working class.

If, indeed, “Obama was the figurehead for a counterrevolution that takes dead aim at its foes in the American working class,” then 2024 offers us no real choice between the two corporate parties, both hostile to everyday people.  We can be sure that war and austerity will continue regardless of which corporate candidate wins. Both poverty and the poverty draft increase the short-term value of white privilege, making it an asset fewer whites are willing to sacrifice to the rigors of class struggle — despite the fact that a much bigger prize awaits a working class who can tell friends from enemies. After all, Jeter asks, “What good would it be to be white in a country where everyone’s needs are met?”

And so, meeting our needs will never be on the agenda of the Democrats or Republicans. Austerity is their strategy to maximize profits, preempt dissent, and perpetuate white ethnonationalism. As we are divided, so are we conquered.

Hey, What’s the Big Idea? 

Jeter convincingly shows that — in the battles of the class war — we do not have an either-or choice between race and class.  Class has multiple meanings in America: multiracial solidarity is the feature of class struggle at its high water mark, and white treachery is the feature of class struggle when the bosses win and we lose.

This thoroughly dialectical account shows that race and class do not work as static opposites but as two possibilities of a single revolutionary process.

In Jeter’s telling, and among the contemporary opposition, there are two master narratives: the colonial/settler narrative and socialist or anarchist-inspired class analysis. Jeter’s contribution, and a significant one it is, has shown us that great storytelling can weave both strands into a single tapestry. Jon Jeter has done his part and paid his dues by moving us closer to the day that workers will answer the call to join and win the Class War in America.

*All quotes are from Jon Jeter, Class War in America.

Richard Moser writes at befreedom.co where this article first appeared.