(IPS) There were few surprises over the hanging last month of convicted murderer Toshihiko Hasegawa - the most recent execution carried out here - but questions are slowly rising over Japan's continued use of the death penalty.

Campaigners against the death penalty staged a rally recently, asking the government to open a public debate on capital punishment and reforming Japan's law on it. Earlier, they put up banners and slogans in the Nagtacho area here against capital punishment.

''There is no national deliberation on the issue (death penalty). We want an extensive discussion to raise awareness among people which will be the deciding factor in the extension of the current law,'' explains Akira Ishikawa of Amnesty International Japan.

At present, the Japanese authorities keep executions low profile. Death-row inmates are not executed unless ordered by the justice minister. The justice minister does not disclose the names of those executed, until afterwards.

Details of the execution remain state secrets, but anti-death penalty activists report that judging from Hasegawa's body, which was released to his family, he had struggled for l5 minutes with the noose round his neck before he finally died.

Hasegawa was informed of the implementation of the death sentence just after he had eaten his last meal. He had about two hours before he was taken to the gallows. Activists say the government does not release the bodies of hanged prisoners to family unless official requests have been made before the executions.

Hasegawa, 51, was executed along with another inmate, Koijiro Asakura, 61. Both men were committed for heinous crimes - Hasegawa murdered three people for insurance money between 1970 and 1983, and Asakura was convicted of killing a family of five in 1983.

In a statement afterwards, Justice Minister Mayumi Moriyama said: ''It is the role of the administration to deliver (punishments) in line with court judgments, and in the capacity of the justice minister, I made the decision (to execute them.) I am compelled to act faithfully in conformity with existing laws''.

Hasegawa's and Asakura's executions, which activists found out after their death sentences were carried out, mark the first ones in 13 months. There are currently 56 prisoners, including two women, on death row.

Inhumane act

Activists argue that the death penalty is inhumane and allows no room for rehabilitation. There is the case of Sakae Mendo, 76, who spent more than 36 years on death row after being falsely accused of murder. He is the first death-row inmate to have regained his freedom.

Shizuka Kamei of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party says there can be erroneous judgments in the Japanese judicial system because it depends too much on confessions in police custody.

But it is not easy to get reforms in on capital punishment. A 1999 poll by the prime minister's office reveal less than 10 percent of Japanese support the abolition of the death penalty. Likewise, it showed that about 80 percent support it, saying it contributes to social stability.

But ''polls do not necessarily show how society should be,'' Kamei argues. Lawyer Nobuto Hosaka of the Social Democratic Party says capital punishment is inhuman and actually against the Japanese tradition of respect for life.

Ishikawa says that the death sentences passed on the perpetrators of past crimes, like the sarin chemical attacks on public trains by members of the former Aum cult, also reduced support for their movement.

This also makes it hard for the affected families of hanged convicts to protest the death penalty law, activists say. They say family members often shut themselves in the house to protect themselves from slurs and other discriminatory acts.

Indeed, research compiled by activists reveal that the relatives of the executed are tormented with shame and sorrow after the death of their kin.

''Japanese society views criminals as evil who must not be allowed to re-enter society again. This harsh backdrop provides much pain for the family members of criminals," says Ishikawa.

Deep shame

At the same time, some parents or siblings feel deep shame and would not even think of protesting the official executions, a situation ingrained in Japanese tradition that upholds the good of the public against individual wishes.

In a rare move, Hasegawa's brother, Masaharu Harada, who spent a lot of time visiting his brother in prison , requested in a letter that the death sentence be changed to life imprisonment.

But there is a typical case in point in the reaction of the family members of 35-year-old Mamoru Takuma, with a history of mental disorder, who is accused of fatally stabbing eight primary school students and wounding 15 others in June last year.

His father, in a public statement, said he wants to die with his son who he says deserves the death sentence.

In a statement read by prosecutors, he added, ''I cannot apologise to the victims and their families for my son's deeds with any words.''

Emma Bonino, former Italian parliamentarian and a campaigner against capital punishment, also urged Japan to reconsider its use of the death penalty when she was in Tokyo recently.

She was joined by a group of 98 Japanese lawmakers, led by a senior Liberal Democratic Party member who also wants the death penalty scrapped.

Bonino said that the Japanese justice ministry had denied her request to meet with a death row prisoner and to visit the execution site. Officials told her that the meeting would disturb the prisoner's mental state, and that the execution site is a sacred one.

She told reporters this was in contrast to her visits to Chicago and Miami in the United States, where she was not denied access to death-row prisons.

In June, the Council of Europe endorsed an in-house report calling for the abolition of the death penalty in Japan and the United States.