tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/aum-shinrikyo-36238/articlesAum Shinrikyo – The Conversation2018-09-21T11:25:03Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/979802018-09-21T11:25:03Z2018-09-21T11:25:03ZGurus, gas attacks and pubic hair: the strange history of Japan’s new religions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233280/original/file-20180823-149475-hsts93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">"Stop the hair nudes!" A protest by Kofuku-no-Kagaku members against the showing of pubic hair in photographs displaying nudity.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ella Tennant</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This summer, Japan <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/06/japan-executes-sarin-gas-attack-cult-leader-shoko-asahara-and-six-members-reports">finally executed</a> six long-imprisoned former members of the now-banned radical religious group Aum Shinrikyo. All of them had taken part in the group’s notorious 1995 sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway which killed 13 people and injured thousands more. Also executed was the group’s founder, Shoko Asahara.</p>
<p>Founded as a new religion in 1987, Aum Shinrikyo propagated teachings based on Asahara’s interpretation of Buddhism, Hinduism and the practice of esoteric yoga and meditation. At its height, it claimed a membership of 10,000 in and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2645835">tens of thousands more abroad</a>. But while the sarin attacks were unprecedented and won the group global notoriety, Aum Shinrikyo itself was far from unique.</p>
<p>In the years leading up to the attacks, Japan’s religious landscape produced a wide range of groups pursuing radical social change. Although they presented themselves in very different ways, they all attracted followers seeking a more global awareness, and <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=m1CFCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA167&lpg=PA167&dq=tennant+E+far+eastern+economic+review&source=bl&ots=cY0N6t2Hua&sig=xVsPdYoWIrOFMEbagcVUz1g91Vg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiO_onZ1u_bAhVsDcAKHSghA-AQ6AEIXzAM#v=onepage&q=tennant%20E%20far%20eastern%20economic%20review&f=false">offered a sense of identity</a> to people feeling disorientated in a rapidly changing society. At the time, I was conducting research and fieldwork in Tokyo, which put me in a position to observe and document not just the gas attacks but the social context in which they occurred.</p>
<p>One group that appeared at around the same time as Aum Shinrikyo was Kofuku-no-Kagaku, which began life as a publishing company that churned out books supposedly penned by its founder, <a href="https://okawabooks.com/">Ryuho Okawa</a>. In 1990, Okawa declared himself first the reincarnation of Buddha, then a supreme divinity by the name of El Cantare. By the mid 1990s, the group was legally a religion in Japan and claimed a membership of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/30234459?refreqid=robotstxt-sitemaps:dbdb03fb661598c4bd3b773897e223e2&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">8.25m people</a>,rapidly increasing with overseas proselytisation.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224787/original/file-20180625-19385-vc6slx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224787/original/file-20180625-19385-vc6slx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224787/original/file-20180625-19385-vc6slx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224787/original/file-20180625-19385-vc6slx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224787/original/file-20180625-19385-vc6slx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224787/original/file-20180625-19385-vc6slx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224787/original/file-20180625-19385-vc6slx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">‘Media Ethics’ representatives of Kofuku-no-Kagaku: actress Tomoko Ogawa, writer Tamio Kageyama, publicist Kujo Ogawa and journalist Junko Tanaka, November 1994.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ella Tennant</span></span>
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<p>Kofuku-no-Kagaku presented itself as an “innovative” religion, with a fresh and dynamic public image. With a constantly changing cosmology based on social Darwinism and hints of Japanese nationalism, its message and approach matched the ebullient, competitive mood of the bubble economy. Whereas Aum Shinrikyo seemed to appeal to graduates from top universities, Kofuku-no-Kagaku attracted successful writers, journalists, <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2017/04/06/films/talent-gets-religious/">actors</a>, and “professionals” who had returned from overseas and experienced a form of cultural malaise.</p>
<p>It staged media campaigns and spectacular events to attract new members and retain those already “committed” within a tight <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/12389/the-sacred-canopy-by-peter-l-berger/9780385073059/">plausibility structure</a>. In other words, by repeatedly exposing its members to social events, reading materials, meetings and other activities, it constantly reinforced the credibility of its teachings. Fully dedicated members were often rewarded with a job in the corporation’s plush offices in central Tokyo.</p>
<h2>Protecting society</h2>
<p>Kofuku-no-Kagaku’s moment in the international spotlight came when it <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-18561825">block-booked a Ugandan stadium</a> for a religious rally, which meant local athletes had nowhere to practice to qualify for the Olympics. But in Japan itself, its large-scale protests attracted <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Religious-Violence-Contemporary-Japan-Monographs/dp/0700711090">only limited media coverage</a>. That can partly be attributed to its “abrasive attitude” to criticism and its five-year court battle against Kodansha, a major Japanese publishing company that had dared to publish an article in one of its magazines which was seen as insulting to Okawa.</p>
<p>The group’s <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=m1CFCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA167&lpg=PA167&dq=prophet+motive+ella+tennant&source=bl&ots=cY0N6uWNwb&sig=nvZG2AKaAva9wFqKMPAEplQBYpM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwic8Ny64O_bAhXHA8AKHdKTB1MQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=prophet%20motive%20ella%20tennant&f=false">most eye-catching demonstration at home</a> came in 1994, when a horde of protesters walked from Shibuya to Yoyogi Park in central Tokyo on a November day displaying placards and shouting “stop the hair nudes!”</p>
<p>At the time, pornographic magazines were on sale in many Japanese corner shops, and people would openly read them on crowded trains; some regular newspapers also had a column dedicated to an erotic model or activity. Most of these publications covered up pubic hair with a black square, but more and more magazines were flouting this convention. “Stop the Hair Nudes” was staged to draw the public’s attention to this supposed indecency, and to win Kofuku-no-Kagaku credit for taking a moral stand.</p>
<p>For some protesters, the fact that a number of publishing companies were no longer covering up pubic hair seemed to cause more outrage than the pornography itself. As one protester explained to me: “I wanted to join in the demo to protect Japanese society from being corrupted … as a parent I don’t like society to be corrupted for children.”</p>
<p>Starting in March 1995, Kofuku-no-Kagaku began openly criticising Aum Shinrikyo, stating that as “representatives of religiosity in Japan”, members had a duty to speak out. The group took to the streets of central Tokyo, cruising around in vans with loudspeakers blasting criticism of Aum Shinrikyo and demanding the police investigate its activities. In a lecture I attended in 1994, Okawa himself claimed to know the whereabouts of the Sakamotos, a missing family allegedly abducted by Aum Shinrikyo in 1989. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224788/original/file-20180625-19399-mpas7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224788/original/file-20180625-19399-mpas7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224788/original/file-20180625-19399-mpas7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224788/original/file-20180625-19399-mpas7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224788/original/file-20180625-19399-mpas7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224788/original/file-20180625-19399-mpas7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224788/original/file-20180625-19399-mpas7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224788/original/file-20180625-19399-mpas7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Kofuku-no-Kagaku members on their way to protest outside Aum Shinrikyo’s Tokyo headquarters, two days before the sarin attack.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ella Tennant</span></span>
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<p>And just two days before the sarin attack in 1995, I witnessed a demonstration by Kofuku-no-Kagaku members outside Aum Shinrikyo’s Tokyo headquarters. While hardly reported in the press, the protest was seen by some observers as open provocation. An anonymous report in the Japan Times the day after the attack even suggested that the incident may have been orchestrated by one “rival” religious group in an attempt to discredit the other – but with little concrete evidence to support this claim, there was no follow-up.</p>
<h2>New life</h2>
<p>Times have changed since those strange days. While Aum Shinrikyo disbanded after the sarin attack, many of its members quickly reformed under a new name, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35975069">Aleph</a>. Even after <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43395483">this summer’s executions</a>, more evidence is emerging of the group’s links to the use of the gas and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35975069">other suspicious activities</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Kofuku-no-Kagaku – which now operates under the snappy new English name Happy Science – appears to have assimilated into the mainstream. It now operates “temples”, retreats, overseas branches, and schools. It even boasts a political party, the <a href="http://happy-science.org/">Happiness Realisation Party</a>, founded in 2009. Its platform promises to “offer concrete and proactive solutions to the current issues such as military threats from North Korea and China, and the long term economic recession”. It has yet to be voted into parliament.</p>
<p>In the aftermath of the events of 1995, the government was forced to reexamine and tighten up <a href="https://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/human/civil_rep4/article15_18.html#a18">existing</a> <a href="https://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/human/civil_rep4/article20_22.html#a20">legislation</a>, which until then meant that virtually any group with a leader, a doctrine and a membership could claim to be a religion. As a result, such groups benefited from tax breaks, and were essentially left to their own devices.</p>
<p>Founding a religion in Japan is far more difficult now than it was before 1995. But as in the case of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-should-indonesia-deal-with-emerging-religious-cults-54464">Branch Davidian sect led by David Koresh</a> in Waco, Texas, full immersion in a particular vision of society still works. It impels followers to set about making their particular vision a reality – and helps them justify the unjustifiable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97980/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ella Tennant received funding from the University of Hong Kong to conduct the research referred to in this article. </span></em></p>From a sarin attack on a city subway to the rebirth of Buddha to protest marches against indecent magazines, Japan’s religious movements have covered a lot of ground.Ella Tennant, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/983972018-06-26T13:58:49Z2018-06-26T13:58:49ZWhy Japan is reluctant to retry the world’s longest-serving death row inmate<p>In June 1966, the manager of a miso-producing factory, his wife and two children were murdered in their home. Their house was robbed and set alight. Iwao Hakamada, who was an employee at the miso factory, was tried for the quadruple murder and ultimately <a href="http://www.deathpenaltyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/The-inevitability-of-error-English.pdf">found guilty</a>. But you don’t need to be a legal expert to feel uneasy about the safety of his conviction.</p>
<p>After he was arrested, Hakamada was interrogated without a lawyer and tortured for 20 days, for up to 16 hours a day. The prosecution <a href="http://www.deathpenaltyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/The-inevitability-of-error-English.pdf">submitted 45 signed documents</a> by Hakamada confessing his crime, but the court admitted only one.</p>
<p>The police claimed that Hakamada was in his pyjamas when he committed the murder, and that the pyjamas were stained with blood that was not his, and with oil used in the arson. But then, 14 months after the crime and nine months after the trial had started, <a href="https://apjjf.org/-David-T--Johnson/4272/article.pdf">five other items of heavily bloodstained clothing</a> were mysteriously “discovered” in a miso barrel at the factory. (It has since been suggested in court appeals that the clothes might have been <a href="https://apjjf.org/-David-T--Johnson/4272/article.pdf">planted by the police</a>).</p>
<p>The prosecution duly altered its argument, and claimed that Hakamada wore the newly found clothes when murdering the family and then – for whatever reason – changed into pyjamas to commit the arson. However, the colour of the clothes was too light and the blood stains too dark for them to have been stewing in a miso barrel for 14 months. The clothes were also too small for Hakamada. The prosecution claimed that the clothes shrunk in the miso barrel, and that the tag “B” on the clothes indicated a medium size (which would have fit Hakamada), even though the tag in fact indicated the colour (black) not the size.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"442917224374730754"}"></div></p>
<p>Nonetheless, Hakamada was sentenced to death. More than five decades later, he is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/03/27/japan-to-free-worlds-longest-serving-death-row-inmate-after-more-than-40-years/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2e69e060ae25">listed in the Guinness Book of World Records</a> as the longest-serving man on death row. But the possibility he’ll end his life as a convict is not a sure thing.</p>
<h2>Shaky ground</h2>
<p>In 2007, one of the original trial judges <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/hakamada-iwao-death-penalty-row-japan">admitted</a> that even at the time, he considered Hakamada’s conviction probably unsafe: “Looking at the evidence, there was almost nothing but the confession, and that has been taken under intense interrogation.” He said that two senior judges pressured him into writing a guilty verdict.</p>
<p>In 2014, Hakamada was released and a retrial was ordered by a lower court – but in June 2018, the Tokyo High Court <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/11/japan-man-freed-after-45-years-on-death-row-could-go-back-to-jail">overturned</a> the decision to grant a retrial. It did not demand Hakamada be brought back into detention, given his age and health concerns; but until his name is cleared, he technically remains on death row. Hakamada’s lawyers are now appealing to the Supreme Court. For the 82-year-old Hakamada to clear his name, the Supreme Court must grant him a new trial and find him not guilty. It took four years for the Tokyo High Court to issue its ruling, and the Supreme Court’s decision could take another couple of years.</p>
<p>The lead attorney in the Hakamada case, Katsuhiko Nishijima, is <a href="https://www.crimeinfo.jp/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/06.pdf">convinced</a> that the police and the prosecution “hid evidence” and “forged reports” to get a conviction. After the Tokyo High Court’s ruling, Hakamada’s sister, who has campaigned for his innocence, <a href="http://news.nicovideo.jp/watch/nw3585324">expressed her disappointment</a>: “It’s not just the prosecution, but the courts are also turning a blind eye to the truth.”</p>
<p>The court’s exceptional 2014 decision to release Hakamada when a retrial was ordered and that he remains on release despite the latest judgment amount to a tacit admission that his conviction is less than sound. </p>
<p>So why is the Japanese criminal justice system so reluctant to officially consider the possibility that Hakamada was wrongfully convicted? In short, because of the effect a not guilty verdict could have on the system itself. The Tokyo High Court’s decision to scrap the retrial has to be taken in the context of other events that have nothing to do with this particular case.</p>
<h2>Clashing priorities</h2>
<p>Earlier this year, I wrote about the <a href="https://theconversation.com/aum-shinrikyo-subway-sarin-attack-japanese-cult-members-await-execution-two-decades-on-90890">possible execution</a> of 13 members of the now-defunct doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, sentenced to death for their part in the cult’s infamous 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway. The Japanese Ministry of Justice transferred these convicted cult members to various detention centres where executions can be carried out. It is rumoured that they could be simultaneously executed this summer.</p>
<p>Had the Tokyo High Court upheld the decision to grant Hakamada a retrial, scrutiny of the death penalty’s merits would have ramped up just as the Aum executions are due. The executions are already sensitive thanks to both the next Olympics and the <a href="http://www.moj.go.jp/ENGLISH/m_hisho10_00002.html">UN’s 14th Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice</a>. In the run up to these events, the Japanese government is working hard to keep attention away from any matters that would tarnish Japan’s international reputation.</p>
<p>This means the Hakamada’s high court decision <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/21/national/crime-legal/aum-trials-asahara-accomplices-can-finally-hanged/#.Wyfauy2ZPUK">relieves pressure</a> on the government as it tries to “finish” the Aum cases by the end of 2018. Until a retrial declares Hakamada’s innocence, the Japanese government can work under the assumption that the current death penalty system is safe. But then again, that doesn’t mean public opinion is set in stone.</p>
<h2>Changing times</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783658006778">My own research shows</a> that as things stand, the Japanese public trust the courts. They view the handful of postwar death penalty verdicts that have been overturned as old to the point of irrelevance, with no bearing on the system’s current workings. But if Hakamada were exonerated, that would damage the system’s image of infallibility and provide an unprecedented opening for abolitionists both inside and outside of Japan.</p>
<p>The same effect can be observed elsewhere. In the US, a number of <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-death-penalty">high-profile exonerations</a> have played a part in <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-crisis-american-death-penalty#Sec02b">dramatically shifting</a> attitudes towards capital punishment. According to polling firm <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1606/death-penalty.aspx">Gallup</a>, Americans’ support for the death penalty reached 80% in 1994 but sank to 55% by 2017. Fewer death sentences are being handed down, and more and more states are moving away from capital punishment altogether. In the UK, the fallout from the wrongful execution of <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8556721.stm">Timothy Evans</a> eventually led to the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1965/71/contents">Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965</a> which abolished the death penalty for capital murder.</p>
<p>For now, Japan is still trying to preserve the legitimacy of the death penalty and the criminal justice system by delaying an unedifying retrial while denying any possibility of error. But in the end, no system is immune to error. And so long as the death penalty remains a lawful punishment, innocent people will be sentenced to death. How we respond to mistakes is another matter.</p>
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<p><em>This piece initially said the Hakamada court’s decision relieved pressure on “the courts”; it should have read “the government”. The error has been corrected.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98397/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mai Sato receives funding from the European Commission. </span></em></p>Iwao Hakamada was tried for quadruple murder in 1966, but the evidence that convicted him is regarded with widespread scepticism.Mai Sato, Associate Professor in Criminal Law and Criminology, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/908902018-03-22T14:07:05Z2018-03-22T14:07:05ZAum Shinrikyo subway sarin attack: Japanese cult members await execution two decades on<p>I was at a school camp when the now-defunct doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Tokyo-subway-attack-of-1995">attacked morning commuters on Tokyo subway lines</a> with sarin gas. It was the spring of 1995 and 13 people were killed and more than 6,000 injured. I remember being asked by my teacher to ring my parents in case they were caught up in the attack. Luckily, my father escaped, but only by ten minutes or so. The thought that he could have been a victim left a lasting impression on me. </p>
<p>I remember watching hours of television reports about the attack. The whole nation was glued to the story, and to revelations that the attack was carried out by a cult. Founded by Shoko Asahara – real name: Chizuo Matsumoto – Aum Shinrikyo <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/03/14/national/history/cult-attraction-aum-shinrikyos-power-persuasion/">believed</a> that the world would come to an end in 1997. It was soon established that its members had murdered an anti-Aum lawyer and his family back in 1989, and had carried out other sarin attacks, including a <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/06/21/national/history/matsumoto-aums-sarin-guinea-pig/#.WrOcAJO5thE">1994 attack in Matsumoto</a> that killed eight people and injured more than 500.</p>
<p>Now, nearly two decades later, Aum Shinrikyo is back in the news again. In January 2018, Japan’s supreme court <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/21/national/crime-legal/aum-trials-asahara-accomplices-can-finally-hanged/">upheld the life sentence</a> of an Aum member Katsuya Takahashi, the last Aum member to be tried for the attack. The same month, Japan’s Ministry of Justice also transferred some cult members who’ve been sentenced to death to various detention centres where executions can be carried out. The executions could come at any time, and won’t be announced until they’re concluded. The prisoners themselves will only be notified of their executions on the day.</p>
<p>One might wonder why it took so long to conclude the Aum trials. But the cult’s founder was just one of 190 people who were prosecuted for various crimes committed by the cult, and three members who were on the run, including Takahashi, were only arrested in 2011. The Japanese Ministry of Justice does not normally execute prisoners on death row if an accomplice’s case is still pending. With the last Aum member’s trial completed, the slated executions can now take place.</p>
<p>Almost all of the 13 death row inmates awaiting execution are requesting retrials, but their chances don’t look good. Two unrelated <a href="https://www.news24.com/World/News/japan-executes-two-murderers-including-teenage-killer-20171219">executions</a> were carried out in December 2017 even though the prisoners concerned had retrial requests still pending. </p>
<h2>In the waiting line</h2>
<p>It’s not unusual for Japanese death row inmates to spend decades awaiting execution; Asahara himself has been on death row for 14 years. Some die in solitary confinement, where death row prisoners are kept, without formally being executed. As I have written elsewhere, long years spent on death row – referred to as the <a href="http://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/killing-time-a-comment-on-the-case-of-brandon-astor/">death row phenomenon</a> – are also a feature of the US criminal justice system. The trials and appeals meant to minimise the possibility of wrongful execution often result in prisoners being on death row for a extended time.</p>
<p>But in Japan, this isn’t the only reason executions are delayed. The decision of whom to execute next is not made public. International and domestic law prohibit the execution of such people.</p>
<p>Yet while Asahara’s mental health is <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1440-1819.2006.01454.x">reported</a> to be extremely poor, the Ministry of Justice has maintained that he is fit enough to be put to death. The ministry seems downright determined to see him executed. As one senior justice official was <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/21/national/crime-legal/aum-trials-asahara-accomplices-can-finally-hanged/#.WmsL1iOcbUJ">quoted</a>: “We cannot leave someone who committed such heinous crimes to die from disease.”</p>
<p>What will the executions tell us about Japan’s attitude to justice today?</p>
<h2>Turning harsh</h2>
<p>Since the Tokyo attack, Japan’s punitive criminal justice system has increasingly revolved around fear and retribution. While Japan’s annual murder rate has steadily decreased since the attack, dropping below 1,000 in 2013, people’s fear of crime has increased, and victims’ rights groups have gained enormous power. The public has duly become <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/12057523/Japan-hangs-first-man-convicted-by-jury-as-Tokyo-claims-death-penalty-is-popular.html">ever more involved in the criminal justice process</a>. Judges started to sentence more prisoners to death after the attack; justice for the victims, it seemed, demanded nothing less than a capital sentence.</p>
<p>These trends are not unique to Japan. The UK also went through a period of being “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/governing-through-crime-9780195181081?cc=gb&lang=en&">governed through crime</a>” where politicians take advantage of the pubic’s fear of crime and promote punitive policies which often result in increased imprisonment rates. The 1993 murder of toddler <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-james-bulger-case-should-not-set-the-age-of-criminal-responsibility-91342">James Bulger</a> by two ten-year-olds spurred a similar “punitive turn”. As the public expected the justice system to punish the 10-year-old defendants, sentencing generally became harsher, and the prison population expanded. </p>
<p>But unlike the UK, when the punitive culture emerged in Japan, the country was still an executing state. With limited financial support provided for them by the criminal justice system, a death sentence functions as a symbol of justice for victims’ families in Japan. </p>
<p>But it’s a signal to the rest of the world as well. Executing Aum members would prove that Japan still accepts not just symbolic death sentences, but the death penalty in practice. With the UN’s <a href="http://www.moj.go.jp/ENGLISH/m_hisho10_00002.html">14th Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice</a> to be held in Tokyo in 2020, the international community will be keeping a close eye on how the Japanese government deals with the 13 Aum death row inmates and their sentences. Bearing in mind that more than <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/04/death-penalty-2016-facts-and-figures/">two-thirds of the countries in the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice</a>, these 13 executions would further alienate it from the worldwide trend against the death penalty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90890/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mai Sato receives funding from European Commission and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. </span></em></p>The 1995 Tokyo sarin attack helped make Japanese criminal justice dramatically more punitive.Mai Sato, Lecturer in Criminal Law and Criminology, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/736022017-02-24T07:40:18Z2017-02-24T07:40:18ZMalaysia says Kim Jong-nam was killed with a chemical weapon – here’s what you need to know<p>A preliminary report from Malaysian authorities has found that Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/world/asia/kim-jong-nam-vx-nerve-agent-.html?emc=edit_na_20170223&nl=breaking-news&nlid=64524812&ref=cta">killed by the banned nerve agent VX</a>. </p>
<p>He died on his way to hospital from Kuala Lumpur airport on February 13 2017. It’s claimed that two women, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kim-jong-nam-murder-second-woman-arrested/">who have now been detained</a>, rubbed the chemical <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/world/asia/kim-jong-nam-vx-nerve-agent-.html?emc=edit_na_20170223&nl=breaking-news&nlid=64524812&ref=cta">on his face</a>.</p>
<p>We asked a pharmacologist to explain what the nerve agent involved is and how it works; and an expert in international law to examine the implications of an assassination using a banned chemical weapon on foreign soil.</p>
<h2>What is VX nerve agent?</h2>
<p>Chemical warfare weapons act on the nervous system (hence the name <a href="https://www.opcw.org/about-chemical-weapons/types-of-chemical-agent/nerve-agents/">nerve agents</a>), typically the nerves that control breathing. They act on the cholinergic nerves generally, which control the diaphragm. </p>
<p>The VX nerve agent <a href="http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/vx/vxc/modeof.htm">inhibits the enzyme acetylcholinesterase</a>, which breaks down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine secreted by the cholinergic nerves. <a href="http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/vx/vxc/modeof.htm">This results in more acetylcholine</a>, which overstimulates the tissues, resulting in respiratory paralysis and death.</p>
<p>It is similar to but more powerful than sarin gas, which was used in the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/tokyo-sarin-gas-anniversary-victims-families-gather-20-years-after-deathcults-attack-10124217.html">Tokyo subway attacks in 1995</a>.</p>
<p>Only very little of a nerve agent is needed to kill someone, and it works very fast. The <a href="https://www.opcw.org/about-chemical-weapons/types-of-chemical-agent/nerve-agents/#c4118">speed of death depends on mode of delivery</a>. A nerve agent works faster if it goes directly to the respiratory system, but 10 milligrams on the skin will kill you.</p>
<p>Originally developed from a class of organophosphate pesticides that were abandoned as too toxic, the by British and US military agencies <a href="http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2006/Macgee/Web%20Project/nerve_gas.htm">subsequently developed the VX nerve agent</a> as a chemical warfare weapon.</p>
<p>Various governments stockpiled it as a chemical weapon, but stocks are being destroyed worldwide as <a href="https://www.opcw.org/chemical-weapons-convention/">part of the Chemical Weapons Convention</a>. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/24/kim-jong-nam-north-korea-killed-chemical-weapon-nerve-agent-mass-destruction-malaysian-police?CMP=soc_568">Saddam Hussein was thought to have used the toxin and it’s suspected Syria may have stockpiles</a>, but the former USSR and the US are the only countries that have admitted to having VX or similar nerve agents. American stores were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/world/asia/kim-jong-nam-vx-nerve-agent-.html?emc=edit_na_20170223&nl=breaking-news&nlid=64524812&ref=cta">all destroyed by 2012</a>.</p>
<p>There’s no clear evidence of it being used militarily, but Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo used it to <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/03/14/national/history/cult-attraction-aum-shinrikyos-power-persuasion/">attack people in Osaka in December 1994</a> (as opposed to their sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway).</p>
<h2>What does international law say?</h2>
<p>The VX nerve agent is banned under international law because it’s a chemical weapon as <a href="https://www.opcw.org/chemical-weapons-convention/">defined in the Chemical Weapons Conventions</a>. Such weapons were banned under international law for a number of reasons. </p>
<p>Chemical weapons are, by nature, indiscriminate – it’s very hard to use them in a way that targets only combatants (people directly participating in hostilities) and spares civilians, which is a <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/WebART/470-750065">fundamental rule of the law of armed conflict</a>. </p>
<p>Even if you could use chemical weapons in a discriminate manner, they would still be illegal under the international law principle that prohibits means and methods of warfare that <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/WebART/470-750065">cause unnecessary suffering and superfluous injury</a>, that is, when the injury or suffering caused is out of proportion to the military advantage sought. </p>
<p>While a number of countries are known or suspected to have VX in their possession, there’s no evidence that a state has employed it in armed conflict, or in any other context. <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/cwcsig">North Korea is not a party</a> to the Chemical Weapons Conventions.</p>
<p>Malaysia and the international community as a whole are somewhat constrained to act against North Korea for its use of VX nerve agent to kill Kim Jong-nam. The Malaysian authorities are, of course, perfectly entitled to prosecute the perpetrators. But whether the international community could do anything to North Korea itself is a bit more problematic. </p>
<p>First, it would have to be proved that the perpetrators were acting on instructions from North Korean authorities, or that their acts were somehow attributable to the North Korean government. Only then would the acts of the individual perpetrators be considered acts of the state. </p>
<p>The use of this chemical weapon is internationally prohibited, but the chances of being able to bring North Korean authorities before an international criminal tribunal, or to bring a suit against North Korea in the International Court of Justice, are essentially non-existent. </p>
<p>The only option would be for a resolution to be passed in the UN General Assembly or the Security Council, or both, condemning the use of chemical weapons in violation of the treaty. Another option is imposing sanctions against North Korea in addition to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-01/un-imposes-new-sanctions-on-north-korea/8081704">the ones that already exist</a>. </p>
<p>Any country that maintains diplomatic relations with North Korea, such as Malaysia, or treaty arrangements could potentially be entitled to take action. It could expel North Korean diplomats, or withdraw its own ambassador from North Korea.</p>
<p>Whether it’s legal for a country to have someone killed on foreign soil as appears to have happened in this case is very complicated under international law. Broadly, it can be legal in a couple of very limited circumstances. </p>
<p>It’s allowed if the targeting state is at war with the targeted state (and the person who is killed is a citizen of the targeted state), and the person being targeted is a lawful target under the international law of armed conflict because that person is a member of the armed forces or is otherwise directly participating in the armed conflict.</p>
<p>Second, if the targeted person is about to carry out an armed attack on the targeting state, international law on the use of force says it’s lawful to target that person to stop them carrying out an imminent attack. </p>
<p>Having said that, neither of those scenarios seems to be at play here – <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kim-jong-nam-murder-second-woman-arrested/">the two women arrested for carrying out the attack</a> are an Indonesian national and one carrying a Vietnamese passport. </p>
<p>Neither of those countries is at war with North Korea, so the first scenario is out. </p>
<p>The second scenario also doesn’t seem relevant as there’s no evidence to suggest that Kim Jong-nam was about to launch an armed attack against Malaysia, Indonesia or Vietnam necessitating the use of lethal force to prevent it. This appears to be a political assassination, not a legally justifiable act of self-defence or use of lethal force in a situation of armed conflict.</p>
<p>The only similar recent example that comes to mind is the <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/an-eye-for-an-eye-the-anatomy-of-mossad-s-dubai-operation-a-739908.html">assassination of a Hamas agent in Dubai in 2010</a>, allegedly by the Israeli Mossad agency. That was a case of a person being killed on foreign soil, seemingly by a state government agency. </p>
<p>The international response ranged from condemnation of the act and expulsion of Israeli diplomatic agents from countries that had been subject to passport fraud in the process, including Australia, as those responsible for that attack were carrying fake documents from various states.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73602/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Crawford is a member of the Australian Red Cross International Humanitarian Law Advisory Committee (NSW)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Musgrave receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council to study adverse reactions to herbal medicines, and has previously been funded by the Australian Research Council to study potential natural product treatments for Alzheimer's disease. He also is receiving funding from APL to study food safety. He has lead a study into the developmental toxicity of cyanobacterial toxins.</span></em></p>Using nerve agents is banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention, but North Korea is not a party to it.Emily Crawford, Lecturer and Co-Director, Sydney Centre for International Law, University of SydneyIan Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.