Japan lawyers' group seeks end to death penalty
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TOKYO - Japan's biggest lawyers' group on Friday called for the abolition of the death penalty, a controversial move in country where a large majority of the public supports executing criminals convicted of the most serious offences.
Human rights advocates have long denounced Japan's capital punishment system, under which prisoners are told without warning they will be hanged within hours, but there has been little momentum for change.
Some 80 percent of the public and the core of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling party favour capital punishment. Japan and the United States are the only two members of the Group of Seven advanced economies to practise it.
