There is a wide gap between Japan and much of the rest of the world when it comes to human rights issues, and nongovernmental organizations need to play a role in changing people's awareness, especially on the death penalty, said Hideki Wakabayashi, the newly appointed executive director of Amnesty International Japan.
Japan currently has 120 people on death row. Every day they live in fear, not knowing when they are going to be hanged.
Meanwhile, the global trend is slowly but surely moving toward the abolition of capital punishment.