Hacker News Reader

Which is not actually that different from the US, where the conviction rate is 93%, of which 97% accepted a plea bargain prior to trial.

Source: http://www.justice.gov/usao/reading_room/reports/asr2011/11s...

By itself conviction rate is not indicator because there are different requirements for charges in different countries. It's called "inquisitorial legal system" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisitorial_system ).

Japan has 99.97%

That's because they drop any case that they have a chance of losing, since it reflects poorly on them.

Part of their strategy is also to conclude that almost any murder is a suicide, which artificially inflates those statistics quite a bit.

I have seen assertions over the years that forced confessions are common too. No idea how to even verify this, though.

> Anybody going against the corrupt ruling party is either killed or imprisoned.

That's not true. Quite a few live in exile.