Justice Minister Keiko Chiba was criticized Sunday for authorizing the execution of two death row inmates in July as anti-death penalty activists held a protest rally Sunday in Tokyo.
The July 28 hangings of Kazuo Shinozawa, 59, and Hidenori Ogata, 33, were the first under the Democratic Party of Japan-led government launched last September, and Chiba, a former member of a group of parliamentarians opposed to the death penalty, in an unusual move attended the executions, describing it as the "duty of the person who orders it."
Lawyer Yoshihiro Yasuda, a central figure in the anti-death penalty movement, said during the rally, "Why did this particular justice minister authorize the executions? I feel a strong rage."