By Robert Evans
GENEVA, May 14 (Reuters) - Japan was urged by friends and critics in the United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday to abolish the death penalty and take concrete steps to settle the long-standing issue of wartime "comfort women".
In a review of the Asian power's rights performance, it was also accused of mistreating minorities and failing to give equal treatment to women and urged to improve its handling of immigration and to set up a national human rights body.
In response, Japan said it could not drop the death penalty because public opinion favoured it for "extremely vicious crimes", while it had expressed apologies and remorse over "comfort women" and was "in good faith" on the issue.
It was also working to improve its legislation on gender equality and the treatment of foreign migrants and workers.
The calls for ending, or at least suspending, capital punishment came from Britain, France, Portugal and Luxembourg and a range of other European and Latin American countries which maintain close relations with Tokyo.
Portugal told the 53-member Council that use of capital punishment in Japan was growing, saying in 2007 46 people had been sentenced to death, the most since 1980. Luxembourg said there had been 20 hangings since the end of 2006.
The Japanese delegation said the government had no figures on executions or death sentences and could not confirm those cited by the European Union states, which have all long ago abandoned capital punishment.
Appeals on the "comfort women" -- the estimated more than 200,000 in east Asian countries forced to work as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers in World War Two -- came from South Korea, France and the Netherlands, among others.
But North Korea said the wartime practice -- widespread mainly on the Korean peninsula and in China -- was a "crime against humanity" and declared that Japan should bring the perpetrators to justice and compensate the victims.
In a less accusatory tone, South Korea called on Japan to "respond sincerely" to calls from U.N. human rights bodies over recent years to address the sex slave issue more comprehensively.
Last year both the U.S. Congress and the Canadian parliament passed resolutions calling for a formal Japanese apology over the issue, a move criticised by Japan as not helpful to relations with its North American allies.
Japan acknowledged in 1993 there had been a state role in forcing Korean and Chinese women into military brothels and in 1995 set up a fund to provide compensation to survivors.
But many refuse to accept the money, saying the compensation should come directly from the Japanese government in recognition of its responsability. Nationalist groups in Japan say there were no sex slaves and that the women were prostitutes. (Editing by Janet Lawrence)
