Justice Minister Hatoyama = Grim Reaper?
Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama has approved the execution of 13 death row inmates since he assumed his post last August, a very high number that has led the Asahi Shinbun to use the term “Grim Reaper” [shinigami] when referring to him in a recent article. Hatoyama was not amused:
“It’s an insult to those who were executed. They were not taken away by the Reaper at all,” said Hatoyama during a press conference after a Cabinet meeting on Friday.
Hatoyama lambasted the Asahi Shimbun for a column carried in its evening edition on Wednesday, one day after serial girl killer Tsutomu Miyazaki and two other death row inmates were executed.
[...]
“The media observes (the number of executions I ordered) as something like a baseball player’s batting average, but I’m fulfilling my responsibility as justice minister in a somber manner in order to bring about justice,” said Hatoyama.
“Ordering executions that claim human lives is hard to stomach for me, but I ordered them for the sake of social justice. Miyazaki, the death row inmate who caused horrendous incidents, also has human rights and dignity. It was a ridiculous sentence,” said Hatoyama, referring to the article.
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No win situation. He’s lambasted for giving the approval for the executions. But if he didn’t, he’d be lambasted as being too soft on criminals.
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[...] It was a ridiculous sentence [...] (nice pun)
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Why not criticism for all the people who help those on death row to keep dodging the noose for years?
The child-killer/cannibal Miyazaki is probably the most notorious killer in Japan, but many gaijin have never heard of him because he killed those girls in the late 1980’s, long before most of us came to Japan. Only recently has he come back into news, in the wake of the Akihabara Slayings, as he was the first labelled “Otaku killer”.
I really don’t understand how someone who was PROUD of his killings, unapologetic, etc. could be allowed to live, much less why the Justice Minister should be criticized for making sure he was put to death.
Psychiatrists gave him an extra 7 uears of life as they tested him, but were eventually ignored when he was sentenced to die in 1997. Lawyers gave him an extra 9 years of life until his final appeal was denied by the Supreme Court in 2006. THEY should be the ones being criticized.
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Oops, but that doesn’t mean there are LOTS of elgitimate reasons to criticize Minister Hatoyama, who seems to think the only terrorists in Japan are gaijin, the Japan in which the few acts of terrorism were ALL carried out by native Japanese people.
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It’s true!
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hmmm
Living a life in the public light means that Politicians etc… get nicknames that match their character / attitude.
‘Honest Abe’ = Abraham Lincoln.
‘Iron Maiden’ = Margaret Thatcher.
‘The Chimp’ = Bush the Younger.
‘Tricky Dicky’ = Richard Nixon.
‘Grim Reaper’ = Hatoyama.
Want a new nickname? – Change your character / attitude!
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[sarcasm] So surprised that of all the newspapers out there, the one that would resort to such namecalling would be … Asahi Shimbun. Yup, so surprised. All of you obviously can see the shock on my face. [/sarcasm]
Seriously, if they’re so against it, can’t they come up with better tactics like, say, arguing rationally?
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The Asahi should have come up with a better hogwash or hoax this time as they always do.
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