This is the text of a letter sent by AI to the recently appointed Prime Minister of Japan, Tomiichi Murayama on 8 July 1994. In its letter, AI details its main human rights concerns in Japan, namely: the use of the death penalty and the treatment of prisoners on death row; the protection of asylum-seekers; and the ill-treatment of “daiyo kangoku” detainees. AI also urges the Japanese Government to ratify those international human rights standards to which it is not yet a party.
