Japan executed three death row convicts Tuesday for the first time since 2019, according to the Japan Times. The three executions are the first carried out under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

The three prisoners were identified as Yasutaka Fujishiro, 65, Tomoaki Takanezawa, 54 and Mitsunori Onogawa, 44. Fujishiro was convicted for killing seven of his relatives in Hyogo Prefecture in 2004. He was sentenced to capital punishment in May 2009 and his conviction was finalised after Japan’s Supreme Court rejected his appeal in June 2015. Takanezawa and Onogawa were convicted of killing two employees at two separate pachinko parlors in Gunma Prefecture in 2003. The death penalties for Takanezawa and Onogawa were finalised in July 2005 and June 2009 respectively.

Japan executes its death penalties by way of hanging. Japanese prisoners and international human rights groups have continuously opposed Japan’s death penalty. Death row inmates in Japan may only be informed of their executions by authorities hours before it is carried out. In November, two Japanese prisoners filed a case opposing the practice. Additionally, the period between the final conviction and execution in Japan can span decades, which may lead to severe mental trauma and suffering.

Amnesty International has consistently opposed the country’s death penalty practices. According to the group, the death penalty naturally violates international instruments that aim to prohibit the same including the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Protocol Number 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty.