Death row inmate Yoshio Fujinami had hoped his execution would be the last carried out in Japan, according to Reuters. "If the death penalty is carried out as retribution, the path to rehabilitation will be closed after one mistake," wrote Fujinami, convicted of killing relatives of his ex-wife in 1981. Last December, the 75-year-old Fujinami and three other convicted killers were hanged. With nearly 100 inmates now on death row -- almost twice the figure of a decade ago -- and courts imposing a growing number of death sentences, his final wish seems unlikely to be fulfilled. A public perception that violence is rising, an increasingly vocal victims' rights movement and intense media coverage of horrific crimes are pushing courts to hand down stiffer penalties -- including more death sentences, experts and activists say. "I think people are being swept away by an emotional feeling of revenge," lawmaker Shizuka Kamei, who heads a group of parliamentarians opposed to the death penalty, told Reuters. The mood contrasts with the European Union, where the death penalty is banned and calls for a global moratorium mounted after footage surfaced showing Saddam Hussein being taunted moments before he was hanged. In the United States, which along with Japan is one of the few advanced democracies to execute criminals, death sentences fell to a 30-year low in 2006 and capital punishment is now under what appears to be an unprecedented review amid eroding support. Yet in Japan, where executions are shrouded in secrecy, debate on the death penalty is muted.
