“I was shocked to learn that three people have been executed in Japan. The execution procedure is particularly inhumane. Prisoners are not informed of the date of their execution. Rather, they are taken from their cells to the place of execution without prior warning.
Neither are their families informed about the impending execution, rendering a personal farewell impossible. I urge the Japanese Government to abolish the death penalty, as more than two thirds of the world’s countries have done.
The German Government has been campaigning to bring about the worldwide abolition of the death penalty.”