Burning or burial alive, crucifixion, quartering, walling up, wheeling - what methods of execution have not been used in the world! Historically, this was an extremely simple way to take revenge or deal with criminals and unwanted people. The death penalty for various violations of the law is still used today, and its modern types can perhaps be considered almost humane: injection, shooting, hanging, electric chair and beheading. Lenta.ru talks about countries where death sentences are regularly carried out.
Countries that continue to use the death penalty are in an absolute minority: in 2021, only 23 states carried out such sentences. In 106 countries the death penalty has been abolished altogether; in several dozen countries the possibility of such a sentence is retained by law, but is not used in practice.
According to calculations by the human rights organization Amnesty International, after a sharp jump in the execution of death sentences in 2015, the figures are returning to average. At least 993 people were executed worldwide in 2021, less than the year before (1,032). These data do not take into account China: they carry out more death sentences than other countries, but the actual scale of executions is unknown because this information is considered a state secret. However, the lists of those executed are classified not only in the PRC, but also in North Korea, Vietnam (which should probably be included in the top five countries where the largest number of death sentences are carried out) and South Sudan.
Frame: the film “The Green Mile”
The vast majority of known executions—84 percent—take place in a small group of countries: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan, with Iran accounting for half. It is worth noting that in 2016, for the first time in 10 years, the United States did not enter the top five, taking seventh position. Sixth place went to Egypt. There is only one European country on the list that continues to use capital punishment: Belarus.
One can learn most about modern death penalties from the experience of the United States - they are the most open in the world on this issue. The authorities publish lists of those awaiting punishment, journalists follow their stories, film stories about them and write articles, and information about past “procedures” is also publicly available.
Thirty-one states currently enforce capital punishment, with five different types of death laws. The main method in all regions is lethal injection, others - the electric chair, gas, shooting and hanging - can only be used at the request of prisoners and only in certain territories, and sometimes also only if a sentence is passed before a certain date. For example, a defendant can choose to be executed by firing squad in Utah only if he was convicted before May 3, 2004.
Story
It is possible to sentence a citizen to death only in some developed countries. Capital punishment is applied by court decision and is used if guilt in an extremely serious crime is proven. The Land of the Rising Sun allows execution by hanging.
Society's approval of capital punishment is partly due to history and traditions. In the past, death was a frequent punishment for loss of honor, disloyalty to a master, or a mistake that was insignificant by today’s standards. Seppuku - the suicide of a samurai who committed a mistake - is one of the most famous features of medieval Japanese life. The tradition was based on the ideas of loyalty, honor, and impeccable reputation. Seppuku was allowed only to members of the privileged class. The one who committed seppuku could be proud of this, although from the point of view of a modern civilized person this is impossible.
The tradition of the death penalty goes back centuries
In the past, the sentence of death by seppuku was a privilege of the middle class, while execution was considered a disgrace for the offender and his family. From an early age, boys and girls were taught to perform seppuku, and were instilled with the idea that this ritual is the honor and advantage of samurai. The change in perception began in 1664, when Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu banned suicide due to the death of a master. Seppuku was replaced by monastic vows, and the death penalty was revised by law.
The girl rejected the feelings of the young yakuza.
Junko Furuta
Hiroshi Miyano had a yakuza and joined the gang himself. Because of the fear of Japanese gangsters, in Saitama Prefecture, no one ever dared to refuse them anything. Only little Furuta was the only one who dared to say no. Miyano considered this an insult and took revenge on the schoolgirl.
Serial pedophile nightcare worker arrested in Tokyo
On November 25, 1988, Junko was riding her bike home from her baito (part-time job). At this time, two slackers Miyano and Minato were wandering around the local park, hunting innocent schoolgirls. They were famous and experienced rapists; Miyano and Minato were excellent at spotting easy targets.
The scoundrels noticed the cyclist and quickly came up with a cunning plan. The sneaky Minato pushed Furuta off his bike and ran away, skillfully creating a distraction. Unexpecting an insidious attack, the girl fell and injured her leg. At this time, the young yakuza Miyano, who was “accidentally” walking along the street, ran over to help her up. He offered to walk her home. Unsuspecting Junko accepted her classmate's offer.
You know, he's crazy. Recently he threatened me with a knife. You may still be in danger, perhaps I should walk you home?
[This is what Miyano reportedly told her.]
Japanese primary school teachers are accused of corrupting children. 16+
Instead, Miyano dragged the girl to an abandoned warehouse in a park and, bragging about his Yakuza connections, raped her, threatening to kill her entire family if she called for help.
“That guy in the park [who threw you off your bike] is my friend, and we are the yakuza who chose you. Listen carefully and we will spare your life. You will have sex with us. If you raise your voice, we will kill you!
Threatening to kill, he took me to a nearby hotel and raped me again. From the hotel, Miyano called Shinji Minato and his other friends (Jo Ogura and Yasusi Watanabe ) and invited them to “have fun.”
Newspaper clipping
Sentencing Guidelines
The rules developed following the trial of Norio Nagayama, a 19-year-old boy guilty of 4 robberies aggravated by murder, are now being applied. He committed crimes in 1968 and was punished for them in 1997. Initially, the criminal was sentenced to life imprisonment, but then the decision was recognized as incorrect and he was given the death penalty. Based on the results of the case, 9 criteria were formed to determine whether it is permissible to execute a person:
- heaviness;
- motive;
- the criminal's modus operandi;
- number of victims;
- feelings of the victim's loved ones;
- the impact of the event on society;
- age;
- criminal record;
- the offender's demonstrated willingness to repent.
Only a few developed countries use the death penalty
The number of victims influences the outcome of a trial more than other factors. If one victim is recorded, capital punishment is applied only in extraordinary cases, but statistics show that in 32% of cases the prosecutor’s demands are satisfied. If two people died, in 59% of cases the court will determine the death penalty. If the murderer’s victims were 3 or more people, the probability of satisfying the prosecutor’s request for capital punishment is 79%.
Kidnapping
Around 3 a.m., Miyano took Furuta to a nearby park, where Minato, Ogura, and Watanabe were waiting for him. They learned her home address from a notebook in her backpack and told her that they knew where she lived and that Yakuza members would kill her family if she tried to escape.
The girl initially tried to escape, but was met with brutal violence and became scared when the boys used yakuza language, so she gave up resistance. Moreover, when the detention began, Miyano told her that he would let her go home after a while, so perhaps she believed him.
She was first raped repeatedly by her classmates, but then her friends decided it would be more fun to completely kidnap her. They brought her to Shinji Minato and locked her in the basement of a house on Ayase Street in the Adachi Ward, north of ] Tokyo.[/anchor]
According to the police, Ogura asked Miyano to leave the girl with Shinji Minato so that all his friends would have the opportunity to commit rape. Subsequently, countless other youths and gangsters from this city were able to join them. My comrades already had similar successful experiences of gang rape. Shortly before Furuta's abduction, they kidnapped and raped another girl with impunity, although she was later released alive. They silenced her by threatening her family with death.
The house that Minato's parents owned soon became a regular meeting place for bandits and rapists.
For those who can't stand reading something this violent, don't read it.
For minors
In Japan, a citizen who has reached the age of 20 is considered an adult. The country's authorities signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, thereby adopting a ban on the death penalty for criminals under the age of 18. If the age of the person who committed the serious act is between 18-20 years, the likelihood of the prosecutor requesting capital punishment is extremely low, but legally the possibility of its application exists.
Since 1966, capital punishment has been imposed on 10 minors who committed murder. Eight sentences were carried out; the last verdict was made in 2012.
Requesting the death penalty is a big responsibility for the prosecutor
44 days of torture
Junko Furuta's parents called the police on November 27 and reported that their daughter was missing. The incident attracted the attention of local residents and the press, and the guys got scared. The scum forced her to call home and say that she had run away with her lover, was planning to start a new life, and did not want to be found. The police called off the search.
Kamisaku is a famous young man in the area. He was only 17 years old, but he had already served time in a youth prison. After leaving prison, Kamisaku continued to interact with the yakuza.
For teenagers, the poor girl Furuta became a toy, capable of satisfying their painful lust and incredible cruelty.
According to the investigation, when the parents of one of Furuta's kidnappers came home, the boys forced the girl to pose as Hiroshi Miyano's . Over time, it became clear what they were doing, but Nobuharu Minato's parents could do nothing about it.
For the first ten days, the teenagers raped the girl one by one and in a crowd more than 500 times. They amused themselves by forcing her to undress in front of others, masturbate, and insert various objects into her genitals.
The four criminals invited their friends and acquaintances to Minato's, boasting that there was a "prisoner girl" locked up there, available for sex. At one point, she was being raped by at least 20 men in one day. They burned with lighters and cigarettes, inserted various objects into the vagina and anus, and took photographs with the victim in the background.
Junko's internal organs will be subjected to such severe trauma that she will eventually lose control of urination and defecation.
According to the boys, they shaved her pubic hair, forced her to dance naked to music, smoke several cigarettes at once, inhale paint thinner and drink large amounts of alcohol, milk and water, and left her on a balcony in the middle of a winter night in her underwear.
One of the kidnappers recalled that it took the girl more than an hour to go down to the first floor and use the bathroom.
After washing the girl, the scoundrels continued to rape her.
The bastards took Polaroid photos
As the men and boys became fed up and disgusted with continuing sexual acts with the mutilated victim, the severity of the beatings increased.
The importance of fairness
Attitudes towards capital punishment are ambiguous. Some countries (for example, the USA) practice such punishment, others have imposed a moratorium, but have not excluded it from the norms of the judicial system (Russia did this), while others have completely banned it on their territory (in particular France). In countries that allow capital punishment, they are usually in no hurry to carry out the sentence: a death row inmate awaits his fate for years, decades. Japan is no exception. Hundreds of people sentenced to death are waiting in prison.
The majority of Japanese consider the current system to be correct, fair, and reasonable. Surveys prove: 80.8% of citizens are confident that capital punishment is inevitable. The death of a murderer is an attempt by society to restore justice and punish the criminal, while at the same time protecting itself from a repetition of what happened. Since there is a possibility of a miscarriage of justice, the courts hesitate in executing the sentence, giving the convicted a chance to be acquitted and have the case reviewed.
The Japanese believe that the death penalty gives the victims' relatives a sense of peace and revenge. It is known that many serious crimes in the country are committed by loved ones of people who have become victims of criminals. Not seeing justice in the verdict, they break the law, wanting retribution. A judicial system that allows the death penalty reduces the likelihood of such cases. Although the world is putting pressure on Japan to abandon current regulations, only 9% of the population believes that execution should be abolished. More than half of the country's residents are convinced that those who commit a particularly dangerous act must give their lives.
The death penalty is a subject of debate
In twenty days.
And yet she almost escaped.
Twenty days after the torture began, Junko managed to dial an emergency number, but a young yakuza saw this and snatched the phone from her before Junko could say anything. When the police called back, Miyano assured them it was a mistake.
The gentle executioner Takahiro Shiraishi. Takahiro Shiraishi. 18+ (masakaru.ru)
The popularity of incest in Japan. Essay by Lloyd Demose. 18+
They punished her for trying to escape.
Furuta had a flammable liquid poured on her feet and set on fire; They burned their faces with the flame of a candle and lighters. Then they broke the bottle and inserted it into the anus, as a result of which the girl received numerous injuries. We dropped the barbell on our stomach several times and crushed our fingers.
The girl began to convulse; the boys would later say that they thought she was faking it. They set it on fire again and then extinguished it.
The unfortunate woman barely survived this day. She vomited when she tried to drink some water due to stomach pain. Due to numerous fractures and infected burns, she was unable to move her arms or go to the downstairs toilet.
The unfortunate woman lay on the floor of Minato's room in a state of extreme weakness. The girl began to suffer from incontinence due to injuries inflicted on her internal organs, for which she was repeatedly beaten.
death row
In Japan, death rows operate in the following cities:
- Tokyo;
- Osaka;
- Nagoya;
- Sendai;
- Fukuoka;
- Hiroshima;
- Sapporo.
Death row facilities are not prisons, and criminals have fewer rights than ordinary prisoners. All persons are kept alone; communication, physical exercise, television are prohibited. Visits are strictly limited.
The capabilities of suicide bombers are limited
In thirty days
The brutal injuries could not help but affect the girl’s appearance: over time, her face became so swollen and blackened that it was impossible to even make out its features, and due to infection of the wounds, the girl’s body began to rot and smell. The kidnappers were repulsed by this and needed a new victim to satisfy their sexual needs. The scoundrels attacked a 19-year-old girl in the park, whose identity was never revealed, and raped her.
Furuta's torture continued: they urinated on her, hung her from the ceiling and used her as a punching bag, crushed her stomach with dumbbells, smashed her face on the cement floor, beat her with golf clubs and iron bars, forced her to eat live cockroaches and drink her own urine, locked inside the freezer for long periods of time.
The girl could not walk due to serious burns on her legs, she was beaten with bamboo sticks, her hands were crushed, her nails had cracks from being beaten with a baseball bat. The teenagers continued to extinguish lit cigarettes on her body, burned her eyelids with hot wax and lighters, inserted fireworks into her anus, and then set her on fire . The scumbags inserted the knitting needles of a hot chicken grill, scissors, nails, and a hot light bulb into the vagina and anus , causing the girl to bleed. The nipples were crushed with pliers, then the left nipple was torn off, causing severe bleeding.
This terrifying list goes on and on. There was no limit to the evil these people were capable of, and one of the most terrifying things about it was the incredible number of people involved in this incident.
Not just the scumbags who took part in these actions, but also the people who knew what was going on. It seems that half the male population of the city knew and participated in this monstrous ritual.
The attic where the girl Junko was tortured and killed.
On January 1, 1989, Furuta celebrated the New Year alone with a swollen and motionless half-dead body. Due to her injuries, it took her an hour to crawl to the toilet. The eardrums were seriously damaged, and there was a radical reduction in brain size. The appearance has changed radically - it is impossible to discern facial features, a severely mutilated body with the smell of rotting.
September 1st, the main day of suicide among children in Japan
Execution of the sentence
The execution warrant is issued by the Minister of Justice after consultation with the ministry. After signing, 5 days are allotted for delivery. The death row inmate learns of the decision on the morning of the last day of his life.
It is prohibited to execute criminals on national holidays, on Saturdays and Sundays, and from December 31 to January 2.
The method of carrying out the sentence is hanging in a special cell. The family, representatives of the convicted person, and the media will learn about the event after the verdict is enforced. Since 2007, it was decided to publish the names and ages of those executed and the list of offenses they committed.
The criminal learns about the execution on the day of death
Day 44. The last torture...
On the 44th day, January 4, 1989, one of the sadists returned after losing at mahjong. He went up to the attic, which had been turned into a torture room. Miyano decided to vent his bad mood and anger on a “bag of sand.” He beat her for a long time until the girl started having convulsions. Soon other torturers arrived.
After being kicked, she fell to the floor and convulsed. Because she was bleeding heavily and pus was coming out of the infected burns, the four boys covered their hands with plastic bags to prevent the pus from getting on their hands.
The dying girl asked the sadists: “Kill me and finish this quickly.” But the boys thought (according to investigators) that she was pretending again.
They continued to beat her and dropped an iron dumbbell on her stomach several times. They poured lighter fluid on her legs, arms, face and stomach and set her on fire again. Furuta tried to put out the fire with her broken arms, but gradually stopped moving.
Four youths mutilated her body with an iron rod, burned her face and eyes with a candle, then poured liquid from lighters onto her legs, arms, face and stomach and set her on fire. The last torture lasted two hours. The teenagers watched her agony with interest.
Furuta died as a result of painful shock on the same day.
They put the body in a barrel and filled it with cement.
For a whole day, the four guys did not realize that Junko had died. They assumed she had lost consciousness, which was quite common. As soon as her death was noticed, the killers began disposing of the body.
Fearing punishment for murder, the group wrapped her body in blankets and stuffed her into a duffel bag. To finally get rid of the body, the boys placed it in a 210 liter barrel, filled it with cement and threw it away on the outskirts of Tokyo.
On January 23, 1989, Miyano and Ogura were arrested for the gang rape of a 19-year-old girl they had abducted in December. On March 29, two police officers came to question them because women's underwear was found at their addresses.
During Miyano's interrogation, the officer mentioned an open investigation into the girl's murder. Believing that they were talking about Furuta's death and that Ogura must have confessed, Miyano ratted everyone out and told the police where they could find her body. The police were initially puzzled by the confession as they were referring to the murder of another woman and her seven-year-old son that had occurred nine days before Furuta's kidnapping ( the case remains unsolved to this day ). No one even imagined that Furuta was missing, much less that she was dead.
The place where the barrel with Junko Furuta's body was found
On April 1, 1989, Joe Ogura was arrested for another sexual assault and later rearrested for Furuta's murder. The arrest of Watanabe, Minato and Minato's brother followed.
Several other accomplices were officially identified as having participated in Furuta's abuse, including Tetsuo Nakamura and Koichi Ihara, who were charged with rape after their DNA was found on and inside the victim's body
Minato's parents were not charged.
American teacher fired from Japanese school after exposing genitals
Efficiency of the country's justice system
Capital punishment is used extremely rarely in Japan and only in cases of very brutal crime.
Opinions vary about the impact of the death penalty on the effectiveness of the justice system. Sociologists believe that the institution of capital punishment is ineffective and does not curb the growth of crime. Otherwise, countries that abandoned this method would face a surge in serious crimes.
Opponents of this position believe that the most severe punishment and the way it is talked about in the media instills fear in people and limits their ability to take serious action. Statistics are cited as an argument: Japan has a low crime rate in general, and serious crimes in particular. The country is rightfully one of the safest in the world.
Recent executions
The most high-profile case of recent times is the punishment of Satoshi Uematsu, who in 2016 carried out a massacre in a house for people with special needs. 19 people became victims of the killer, 20 were injured. Satoshi Uematsu worked at the institution for 3 years and committed a crime a few months after his dismissal.
The last death penalty in Japan was carried out on December 26, 2019. Wei Wei, a Chinese citizen who killed a family of three in Fukuoka in 2003, was punished. Together with him, two Chinese citizens took part in the crime and soon fled to their homeland. One of them was sentenced to life imprisonment, the second was executed.
Junko Furuta
How could schoolchildren imprison someone in such hell?
Attention! The post contains shocking information. Sensitive and faint of heart people should avoid viewing. 18+
Perhaps more importantly, how could the criminal justice system punish them as easily as they were punished? You'll be shocked at how little retribution they got for the brutal murder of Junko Furuta.
Student Junko Furuta (Junko Furuta 古田 順子, Junko_Furuta), 16 years old, was in 11th grade at Yashi-Minami High School, Misato City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. Junko Furuta was every parent's dream. She grew up to be a cheerful, studious girl who was more interested in her studies than drugs or partying. The girl hoped to continue her education and go to college.
Furuta was born in Misato, Saitama Prefecture. She lived with her parents, older and younger brother. During her teenage years, she attended Yashio-Minami High School. Since October 1988, the girl began helping her parents after school and got a part-time job at a plastic injection factory. She did this to save money for graduation. Furuta also got a job at an electronics store, where she planned to work after graduation.
Junko was a beautiful sixteen year old girl. She didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't gamble in Japanese games, and was loved by her classmates; it seemed that a bright future awaited the girl. Unfortunately, her beauty attracted the attention of school bullies. One of them was Hiroshi Miyano , a peculiar student who had long and hopelessly loved Furuta. According to their classmates, Hiroshi Miyano asked Junko out on a date, but she respectfully and firmly refused. This firm “no” infuriated the young scoundrel.
Hiroshi Miyano is not used to being told no. He was not only a school bully, but also a known associate of the yakuza.
Version of one of the readers.
It was a rite of passage for the Yakuza. These Yakuza kids had to do this to demonstrate their loyalty and prove that they put the interests of the Yakuza above their own empathy. They also do this to desensitize themselves to killing so that they can easily take on the Yakuza's enemies without any restrictions.
"Cannibal Otaku" by Tsutomu Miyazaki. Tsutomu Miyazaki. "Little Girl Killer" 18+
This is essentially the Japanese version of spirit preparation or "care cremation" (an allegorical banishment of worldly concerns for members of a particular group). Those in power need to do things like this to desensitize themselves to norm exploitation.
Since then, the Yakuza have changed their methods and become more careful not to get caught. Now their people for experiments are raised from birth in top-secret breeding institutions. They are used for organ harvesting, human trafficking, brothels or pinsaros, milkybars, JAV slaves, as well as victims of the aforementioned murder desensitization ritual (much like our Elites do this too).
Modern Junko Furuta will never have a personality, they will never have names. Nobody cares about them. Many have never seen a tree or sunlight or spent a single day on the surface of the earth. There is no one to file a missing person report. There is no one who will look for the body.
30 Ruthless Facts About the Yakuza
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Assault on Nanjing
Fifteen Europeans who remained in Nanjing during the capture of the city organized a Security Zone, which, by prior agreement, was not attacked by the Japanese military - there were no Chinese soldiers in this zone. The head of the committee that managed the Security Zone was the German businessman Jon Rabe, chosen, among other things, because he was a member of the NSDAP, and the Anti-Comintern Pact was concluded and was in force between Germany and Japan. Foreigners tried their best to save the lives of local Chinese. However, 15 people (there were 22 foreigners in total at the beginning of the massacre) can do little when the number of victims runs into the thousands. Nevertheless, they managed to save about 200 thousand Chinese.
During the assault, the Chinese found themselves in the thick of it: the Japanese launched artillery fire and aerial bombardment, during which the meager remnants of the Chinese army, called upon to defend the city, fled. At noon on December 9, the Japanese military scattered leaflets over the city, demanding its surrender within 24 hours and threatening destruction if it refused. The Japanese expected a response to their ultimatum, but none came. General Iwane Matsui waited another hour after the deadline expired and then ordered the city to be stormed. The Japanese army attacked from several directions simultaneously. The Japanese, led by Prince Asaka, began clearing the city.
Memorial to the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre. Source: Regnum.ru
Atrocities
As already mentioned, the number of victims varies among sources. Japanese historians, depending on the time period and geographical limitations they accept in each case, give a wide range of estimates of the number of civilian deaths - from several thousand to 200,000 people. A 42-part Taiwanese documentary published between 1995 and 1997 entitled An Inch of Blood For An Inch of Land estimates that 340,000 Chinese died in Nanjing as a result of the Japanese invasion: 150 000 from bombing and artillery shelling during the five days of the battle itself and 190,000 during the massacres. These studies are based on materials from the Tokyo Trial.
Jon Rabe's diary, which he kept during the battle for the city and its occupation by the Japanese army, describes numerous cases of Japanese cruelty. Entry dated December 17:
“Two Japanese soldiers climbed over the wall and were about to break into my house. When I showed up, they said that they allegedly saw two Chinese soldiers climbing over the wall. When I showed them the party badge, they disappeared in the same way. In one of the houses on a narrow street outside the wall of my garden, a woman was raped and then wounded in the neck with a bayonet. I managed to call an ambulance and we sent her to the hospital... They say that last night, about 1,000 women and girls were raped, about a hundred girls in Jinling College alone... You hear nothing but rape. If husbands or brothers intervene, they are shot. All you see and hear is the cruelty and atrocities of the Japanese soldiers.”
Case No. 5 from the missionary's film: On December 13, 1937, about 30 Japanese soldiers killed 9 out of 11 Chinese at House No. 5 in Xinlongkou. A woman and her two teenage daughters were raped, with the Japanese stuffing a bottle and a cane into her vagina. The eight-year-old girl suffered a stab wound, but she and her sister survived. Two weeks after the murders, they were discovered by an elderly woman (seen in the photo). The bodies of the dead are also visible in the photograph.
The number of raped people, according to historians, averages 20 thousand, excluding children and old women. Girls were simply dragged out of their homes and gang-raped. After this, they were most often abused in the most sophisticated ways: many died from having their genitals torn apart with bayonets, bottles or bamboo sticks. The book “Nanjing Massacre” by Chinese-American writer Iris Chan describes cases in which the Japanese forced entire families to commit incest, forced celibate monks to rape women under threat of death, and in a group they themselves raped a girl who was preparing for childbirth.
On February 10, 1938, German Embassy Secretary Rosen wrote to the Foreign Office about the film made by Reverend John Magie, recommending its purchase. Excerpts from his letter, kept in the Political Archive in Berlin:
“On December 13, about 30 Japanese soldiers came to a Chinese household at Xingliugu #5 in the southeastern part of Nanjing and demanded to be let in. The door was opened by the landlord, a Mohammedan named Ha. They shot him with a revolver, and then Mrs. Ha, who, after killing Ha, begged them on her knees not to kill anyone else. Mrs. Ha asked them why they killed her husband and was also killed. Ms. Xia was pulled from under a table in the guest room, where she had tried to hide with her one-year-old child. She was stripped and raped by one or more men and then bayoneted in the chest and had a bottle shoved into her vagina. The child was killed with a bayonet. Some soldiers then moved to the next room, where Ms. Xia's parents, ages 76 and 74, and her two daughters, ages 16 and 14, were present. They were about to rape the girls when the grandmother tried to protect them. The soldiers shot her with a revolver. Grandfather grabbed her body and was killed. The girls were raped, the eldest by 2-3, and the youngest by 3 men. The older girl was then stabbed to death and a cane was shoved into her vagina. The youngest was also stabbed to death, but escaped the terrible fate of her sister and mother. Then the soldiers bayoneted another sister, aged 7-8, who was also in the room. The last to be killed in the house were two children Ha, 4 and 2 years old. The older one was stabbed to death, and the younger one’s head was cut off with a sword.”
Memorial to the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre. Source: Tiwy.com
Pregnant women were specifically targeted and their bellies were pierced with bayonets, often after rape. Tang Junshan, a survivor of the massacre, said:
“The seventh and last one in the front row was a pregnant woman. The soldier decided that he could rape her before killing her and, separating her from the group, dragged her about ten meters to the side. When he tried to commit rape, the woman offered desperate resistance... The soldier sharply hit her in the stomach with a bayonet. She let out a final moan as her intestines spilled out. Then the soldier stabbed the fetus, its umbilical cord was clearly visible, and threw it aside.”
During the “campaign,” the Japanese followed a scorched earth tactic. On August 6, 1937, Emperor Hirohito personally approved the army's proposal to remove obstacles limiting freedom of action regarding Chinese prisoners of war within the framework of international law. The directive also recommended that staff officers cease using the term "prisoners of war" itself.
Immediately after the fall of Nanjing, the Japanese began a manhunt for Chinese soldiers, during which thousands of young people were detained. Many of them were driven into the Yangtze River, where they were shot with machine guns. On December 18, perhaps the largest massacre of prisoners of war took place on the banks of the Yangtze, which became known as the Straw String Gorge Massacre. Japanese soldiers spent most of the morning tying the prisoners' hands together; at dusk they divided the Chinese into four columns and opened fire on them. Unable to escape, the prisoners screamed and fought in despair. It took about an hour for the sounds of the killing to subside, and then the Japanese continued to finish off the survivors with bayonets. Most were thrown into the river. It is believed that 57,500 Chinese died in this massacre.
The Japanese herded 1,300 Chinese - soldiers and civilians - to the Taiping Gate and killed them there. The victims were first blown up with mines, and then doused with fuel and burned. Those who survived after this were bayoneted. American journalist Tillman Durdin, who worked for The New York Times, traveled through Nanjing before leaving the city. He heard constant machine gun fire and witnessed the Japanese gunning down 200 Chinese within ten minutes. Two days later, in his report for The New York Times, the journalist reported that the streets were littered with corpses, including women and children.
In terms of property destruction, a third of the city was destroyed by fires caused by arson. It was reported that Japanese troops threw torches at both new government buildings and residential buildings. The areas outside the city walls were also seriously damaged. The soldiers robbed both rich and poor. The lack of resistance from the Chinese meant that they could take whatever they wanted, which resulted in widespread looting and pillaging.
