Tokyo, Japan CNN –
The Japanese government asked a court on Friday to order the dissolution of the Unification Church in Japan following the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in July 2022.
The government’s move comes after a months-long investigation into the church, officially known in Japan as the Family Association for World Peace and Unification.
The investigation followed allegations made by suspected shooter Tetsuya Yamagami. that he fatally shot Abe because he believed the leader was connected to the church, which Yamagami blamed for his family’s bankruptcy through the excessive donations of his mother, a member.
In early January, Japanese prosecutors indicted Yamagami on murder and firearms charges.
The government’s investigation concluded that the group’s practices — including fundraisers that allegedly pressured its followers to make exorbitant donations — violated the Religious Corporations Act of 1951.
This law allows Japanese courts to order the dissolution of a religious group if it has committed an act “that clearly significantly harms the common good.”
According to Japanese public broadcaster NHK, the Tokyo District Court will now make a verdict based on the evidence presented by the government.
This is the third time the Japanese government has sought a dissolution order for a religious group accused of violating the law.
She also tried to dismantle the Aum Shinrikyo cult after some of its members carried out a deadly sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995, which killed dozens of people and injured thousands, and on Myokaku-ji -Temple whose priests had deceived people by accusing them of exorcisms. The courts ruled with the government in both orders.
The Unification Church in Japan has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, promised reforms and called reporting against it “biased” and “false.”
On Thursday it released a statement saying it was “very regrettable” that the government was seeking the dissolution order, particularly since it has been “working to reform the church” since 2009. She added that she would present legal counterarguments against the order in court.
If dissolved, the Unification Church, founded in South Korea in 1954 by Reverend Sun Myung Moon, would lose its status as a religious body in Japan and lose tax benefits. However, it could still operate as a corporate entity.
Experts argue that an order to completely dissolve the group could take years to process and even risks driving the company’s activities underground.
04:11 – Source: CNN
Police have a theory about what motivated murder suspect Shinzo Abe
The Unification Church became known worldwide for mass weddings, in which thousands of couples marry simultaneously and some brides and grooms meet their fiancés for the first time on their wedding day.
Public scrutiny of the church in Japan intensified after Abe was fatally shot during a campaign speech last July.
Abe’s alleged attacker told police that his family was ruined by his mother’s huge donations to a religious group that had close ties to the late former prime minister, according to NHK.
A Unification Church spokesman confirmed to reporters in Tokyo that the suspect’s mother was a member, Portal reported, but said neither Abe nor the suspected killer were members.
After Abe’s death, local media ran a series of reports alleging that several other lawmakers from the country’s ruling party had ties to the church, prompting Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to order an investigation.
Kishida told reporters on Thursday that ruling party lawmakers had cut ties with the religious group because they feared the Unification Church was trying to exert political influence.
Since last November, Japan’s Ministry of Culture has been questioning and attempting to obtain Unification Church documents. At the same time, it has collected testimonies from about 170 people who say they were pressured into making massive donations, known in Japan as “spiritual sales.”
According to Sakurai Yoshihid, a religious scholar at Hokkaido University, the practice involves asking followers to purchase items such as urns and amulets on the grounds that doing so would appease their ancestors and save future generations.
CNN has reached out to the Unification Church for official comment but has not yet heard back.
This is not the first time that the Unification Church has been at the center of a controversy.
Naomi Honma, a former member of the Unification Church, told CNN that between 1991 and 2003 she worked on a legal case called “Give Us Back Our Youth,” which alleged that the Unification Church used deceptive and manipulative techniques to to recruit unsuspecting members from the public.
They argued that this had the potential to violate freedom of thought and conscience enshrined in Article 20 of the Japanese Constitution.
After a After a 14-year trial, multiple depositions from plaintiffs, and a 999-page report laying out the group’s “mind control” process, the trial reached its climax.
The Sapporo District Court handed down a landmark ruling in favor of 20 former Unification Church members who had sued the group in the case. It ordered the Unification Church to pay about 29.5 million yen ($200,000) in damages for recruiting and indoctrinating people “while concealing the church’s true identity” and for “forcing some former members to purchase expensive items and Donate large amounts of money.”
In a separate controversy between 1987 and 2021, the Unification Church in Japan claimed around $1 billion in damages over the sale of amulets and urns, according to the National Lawyers Network against Spiritual Sales – a group specifically founded in 1987. to defend itself against the Unification Church.
Nobutaka Inoue, an expert on contemporary Japanese religion at Kokugakuin University, criticizes the church’s recruiting and fundraising techniques. However, he also notes that some of their members felt happy and satisfied after giving to the Unification Church.
Some critics of the Unification Church say the government’s actions do not go far enough because it could still operate as a non-religious group. One option for the government would be to seek a court order that would also strip the church of its corporate status. However, experts believe that processing could take up to two years.
Sakurai, the religious studies expert, warned that if the Unification Church loses its status as a religious body, it would no longer be under the control of Japan’s Ministry of Education and Culture, making it difficult to regulate its activities.
Sakurai pointed to the Aum case, noting that after the sarin gas attack, the Japanese government revoked the group’s recognition as a religious organization but continued to regulate it through a new 1999 law that allowed continued police surveillance of its activities.
But enacting a new law that would allow the government to continue monitoring the Unification Church’s activities – even if one could be passed – wouldn’t work so well, Sakurai warned.
“(Aum) only has about 1,200 members; However, the Unification Church has penetrated many layers of Japanese society – some members are housewives, some work in factories, others are teachers, so the police cannot monitor all the Unification Church’s movements or activities,” Sakurai said.
Some experts say Japan needs to do more to educate the public about non-traditional religions, which some believe are having an increasing influence on society.
Kimiaki Nishida, social psychologist and chairman of the Japan Society for Cult Prevention and Recovery (JSCPR), pointed out that after World War II, Japan separated state and religion and the new constitution prohibits religious education in schools.
As a result, religion has essentially become a taboo subject, Nishida said, and to this day, unlike most EU member states, there is no religious education in primary, middle or high schools in Japan.
According to Toshiyuki Tachikake, a professor at Osaka University who has specialized in anti-cult efforts since 2009, students – especially on university campuses – are vulnerable to being pressured.
He and other experts say more should be done to educate young Japanese about religion.
“We need religious instruction in schools. Providing someone with a comprehensive understanding of different religions and their teachings allows them to make an informed decision about whether to join a particular group if they are ever approached by a recruiter,” Tachikake said.