CCPR/C/JPN/CO/6 remedies. The State party should intensify its awareness-raising activities to combat stereotypes and prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons, investigate allegations of harassment against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons and take appropriate measures to prevent such stereotypes, prejudice and harassment. It should also remove the remaining restrictions in terms of eligibility criteria applied to same-sex couples with respect to publicly operated housing services at the municipal level. Hate speech and racial discrimination 12. The Committee expresses concern at the widespread racist discourse against members of minority groups, such as Koreans, Chinese or Burakumin, inciting hatred and discrimination against them, and the insufficient protection granted against those acts in the Criminal and Civil Codes. The Committee also expresses concern at the high number of extremist demonstrations authorized, the harassment and violence perpetrated against minorities, including against foreign students, and the open display in private establishments of signs such as those reading “Japanese only” (arts. 2, 19, 20 and 27). The State should prohibit all propaganda advocating racial superiority or hatred that incites discrimination, hostility or violence, and should prohibit demonstrations that are intended to disseminate such propaganda. The State party should also allocate sufficient resources for awareness-raising campaigns against racism and increase its efforts to ensure that judges, prosecutors and police officials are trained to detect hate and racially motivated crimes. The State party should also take all necessary steps to prevent racist attacks and to ensure that the alleged perpetrators are thoroughly investigated, prosecuted and, if convicted, punished with appropriate sanctions. Death penalty 13. The Committee remains concerned that several of the 19 capital offences do not comply with the Covenant’s requirement of limiting capital punishment to the “most serious crimes”, that death row inmates are still kept in solitary confinement for periods of up to 40 years before execution, and that neither the inmates nor their families are given prior notice of the day of execution. The Committee notes, furthermore, that the confidentiality of meetings between death row inmates and their lawyers is not guaranteed, that the mental examinations to determine whether persons facing execution are “in a state of insanity” are not independent and that requests for a retrial or pardon do not have the effect of staying the execution and are not effective. Moreover, reports that the death penalty has been imposed on various occasions as a result of forced confessions, including in the case of Iwao Hakamada, are a matter of concern (arts. 2, 6, 7, 9 and 14). The State party should: (a) Give due consideration to the abolition of death penalty or, in the alternative, reduce the number of eligible crimes for capital punishment to the most serious crimes that result in the loss of life; (b) Ensure that the death row regime does not amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment by giving reasonable advance notice of the scheduled date and time of execution to death row inmates and their families and refraining from imposing solitary confinement on death row prisoners except in the most exceptional circumstances and for strictly limited periods; (c) Immediately strengthen the legal safeguards against wrongful sentencing to death, inter alia, by guaranteeing to the defence full access to all prosecution materials and ensuring that confessions obtained by torture or ill-treatment are not invoked as evidence; 4