For close to a quarter of a century, death row inmate Hiroko Kazama’s every movement in her 3½ tatami-size cell at the Tokyo Detention House has been watched.

When she wakes up, uses the bathroom or creates a piece of art, she does so surveilled by guards who observe her through a ceiling-mounted camera.

“Prisoners are never told how or when they are being monitored, which creates a profound sense of fear and uncertainty,” Kazama, 68, said in a statement to The Japan Times.