04 December 2009 :

the Japanese Government will work to abolish the death penalty, Financial Services and Postal Reform Minister Shizuka Kamei said. He added that “the journey isn’t easy and the road is steep,” considering that 80% of the population are in favour of capital punishment.
Kamei, a member of Yukio Hatoyama’s Democratic Government, was guest of honour at a conference on the death penalty from the European and Asian perspective. The conference was promoted in Tokyo by the European Union delegation in Japan, the Swedish Embassy and Waseda University.
“It is the first time that a minister has expressed this in public”, secretary of the Parliamentary League for the Abolition of the Death Penalty, Hirotami Murakashi, told Ansa. The group has hundreds of members, including politicians and senators, from every political division.
The Minister, who is the president of the League, explained that they are conditions “for a new and extraordinary era and for the writing of a new chapter of human rights in Japan.”
Criticising the politics of ex-liberal democratic premier Junichiro Koizumi, Kamei said “We must go further and work for a better life.” Hatoyama launched the concept of 'brotherhood', and furthermore there is a new Justice Minister, Keiko Chiba, who formally left the League after becoming a minister.”
They are all conditions because to have a de facto moratorium, the first step would be to approve a law that introduces life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
“It would be a mile stone because at this point life imprisonment makes the death penalty useless. I will continue to do my best to abolish the death penalty, in line with the international trend.”