Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 2061 Location: Melbourne Country:
Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2009 4:04 pm Post subject:
Japan death row 'breeds insanity'
Prisoners on death row in Japan are being driven towards insanity by harsh conditions, according to human rights group Amnesty International.
The group is calling for an immediate moratorium on all further executions and for police interrogation reform.
A total of 102 prisoners face execution in Japan. Many of them are elderly and have spent decades in near isolation.
International human rights standards prohibit the imposition of the death penalty on the mentally ill.
In Japan, where criminal trials have a 99% conviction rate, the death penalty has wide public support.
But Amnesty's UK Director Kate Allen called on the government to immediately halt executions.
"Rather than persist with a shameful capital punishment system, the new Japanese government should immediately impose a moratorium on all further executions," she said.
'Sheer non-existence'
Ms Allen called the death row system a "regime of silence, isolation and sheer non-existence".
She said that the Japanese practice of informing prisoners that they would be killed with only a few hours notice was "utterly cruel".
According to the report - which researchers said had been challenging to compile due to the secrecy of the country's justice system - the conditions faced by many death row prisoners are making them mentally ill.
Death row prisoners, according to Amnesty, are not allowed to speak to other inmates and are held in isolation.
Apart from twice or thrice-weekly exercise sessions, they are not even allowed to move around their cells but must remain seated, the group says.
As a result, many are now suffering from mental illnesses and are delusional.
According to Japan's code of criminal procedure if a person condemned to death is in a state of insanity, the execution shall by stayed by the justice minister.
But, Amnesty says, executions of inmates who exhibit signs of mental illness - caused by the extreme conditions and the sheer length of their detention - continue.
Between January 2006 and January 2009, the group says, 32 men were executed - including 17 who were older than 60. Five of this group were in their seventies, making them among the oldest executed prisoners in the world.
Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 2061 Location: Melbourne Country:
Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2009 5:15 pm Post subject:
Me too. I don't understand why they would keep death row inmates imprisoned for decades before execution either. That almost sounds vindictive.
The whole legal system seems very unjust from what I know through Japanese entertainment. It sounds very easy for someone to make my life totally miserable if I live in Japan, even if I don't get convicted. Hopefully the new system will be better, in some ways.
Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 2061 Location: Melbourne Country:
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2009 2:35 pm Post subject:
Japan's mobster underlings go back to school
By North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy
They're members of the biggest, meanest organised crime group in Japan, but these tattooed gangsters are being sent back to school by their godfathers.
Under new laws, mob bosses can be sued for the misdeeds of their underlings. So the leaders of the feared Yamaguchi-gumi have begun testing their mobsters' knowledge of the laws.
They've drawn up a 12-page test paper which questions them on a range of banned activities, from bootlegging fuel to dumping industrial waste.
For decades, the Yakuza has been the violent underbelly of Japanese society. Tattooed toughs and punks without pinkies, celebrated and denigrated alike in movies, books and comics.
But these mobsters are feeling the pinch. For a start, the global economic downturn been bad for business and now tough new anti-mob laws are also squeezing these enterprising gangsters.
For example, Yakuza dons can now be sued for crimes committed by their subordinates, meaning they can be cleaned out if their underlings mess up.
Masahiro Tamura is a former chief of the Fukuoka Prefectural Police, a veteran yakuza hunter who commanded a force of 12,000 officers.
"I think this is a good move, because it puts the responsibility on the crime bosses to control their gangsters. It means innocent people are less likely to be targeted," he said.
The crime bosses are looking for ways to beat the news laws so they can save their own skins. And to do that, they've sent their mobsters back to the classroom.
During a raid in central Japan this week, police found a 12-page test paper for yakuza members.
One question asks, "What kind of activities are banned?" And the correct answer: Dumping industrial waste, phone fraud scams, bootlegging fuel and theft of construction equipment.
Former police chief Masahiro Tamura says the Yakuza are merely evolving to suit the new environment.
"I am not surprised at all that the Yakuza are studying the law. The last thing they want is to be fined large amounts or have costs awarded against them in court," he said.
And the godfathers of Japanese crime believe they've already found a few legal loopholes in the new laws.
This was one briefing note recently distributed to Yakuza members of one group:
"It is now illegal to give financial rewards or promote someone who was involved in a hit against a member of a rival gang. But it is not illegal to give them a salary through a front company and promote them within that organisation."
So there you have it: Some free legal advice from Japan's mafia bosses: Don't pay the hit man directly, instead give him a job in a front company and a salary.
So from busting heads on the street to cramming heads for exams, life has never been so cerebral for Japan's Yakuza hard men.
Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 2061 Location: Melbourne Country:
Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 11:31 am Post subject:
Oh, I didn't know.
Japan cancels $5b dam project
Japan's new centre-left government has already started to shake things up on the home front.
It's cancelled construction of a massive dam north-west of Tokyo.
The dam's been on the drawing board for more than half-a-century, and hundreds of families have already had to move to make way for it.
But its cost was estimated at more than $5 billion and now the plans are scrapped.
The residents of a nearby town, many of whom had already given up their ancestral lands to make way for the project, are now divided.
...
(Kinya Takayama speaking)
"Many people around here passed away before even seeing this damn completed" says Nagonohara mayor Kinya Takayama. "Other people have been forced off their ancestral lands to make way for it, it's too late to stop the dam now", he says.
...
This is a nation obsessed with harnessing its wild rivers. In fact, all but three of Japan's 113 major rivers are dammed.
Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 12123 Location: It was fun while it lasted. Country:
Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:23 pm Post subject:
This guy must be a little "frustrated"
FujiTV News
Police in Osaka arrested a man who allegedly set fire to a Laundromat when he tried to steal some women's undergarments but couldnt find anything to his liking.
Police in Osaka arrested a man who allegedly set fire to a Laundromat when he tried to steal some women's undergarments but couldnt find anything to his liking.
Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 12123 Location: It was fun while it lasted. Country:
Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 12:45 am Post subject:
Giant Tuna fetches $177,000 at auction
TOKYO – A giant bluefin tuna fetched 16.3 million yen ($177,000) in an auction Tuesday at the world's largest wholesale fish market in Japan.
The 513-pound (233-kilogram) fish was the priciest since 2001 when a 440-pound (200 kilogram) tuna sold for a record 20.2 million yen ($220,000) at Tokyo's Tsukiji market.
The gargantuan tuna was bought and shared by the owners of two Japanese sushi restaurants and one Hong Kong-based sushi establishment, said a market representative on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information.
Caught off the coast of northern Japan, the big tuna was among 570 put up for auction Tuesday.
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 12:52 am Post subject:
gaijinmark wrote:
Giant Tuna fetches $177,000 at auction
TOKYO – A giant bluefin tuna fetched 16.3 million yen ($177,000) in an auction Tuesday at the world's largest wholesale fish market in Japan.
The 513-pound (233-kilogram) fish was the priciest since 2001 when a 440-pound (200 kilogram) tuna sold for a record 20.2 million yen ($220,000) at Tokyo's Tsukiji market.
The gargantuan tuna was bought and shared by the owners of two Japanese sushi restaurants and one Hong Kong-based sushi establishment, said a market representative on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information.
Caught off the coast of northern Japan, the big tuna was among 570 put up for auction Tuesday.
Dayem, that's huge. Imagine how much money the restaurants make off that fish if they can put up so much money to acquire it at auction.
Dayem, that's huge. Imagine how much money the restaurants make off that fish if they can put up so much money to acquire it at auction.
You could probably extrapolate the amount of money they make relatively easily: amount and cost of the maguro per dish/serving and how many dishes/servings a 513-pound tuna would yield...
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 4:26 am Post subject:
bmwracer wrote:
You could probably extrapolate the amount of money they make relatively easily: amount and cost of the maguro per dish/serving and how many dishes/servings a 513-pound tuna would yield...
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