Anti-cultists and the media misinterpreted and manipulated the circumstances of the Abe assassination to attack the Unification Church.
by Patricia Duval*
*A report sent to several United Nations offices on September 22, 2024.
Article 2 of 5. Read article 1.
The Aftermath of the Abe Assassination
Although the Unification Church had been ostracized in the past with accusations of “spiritual sales” from the lawyers’ Network, it was the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on July 8, 2022, that triggered a resurgence of the media campaigns against it.
Prime Minister Abe manifested sympathy for the peacebuilding activities of a UN accredited NGO affiliated to the Unification Church, the Universal Peace Federation (UPF), on some occasions, by participating through a video in 2021 and by sending a message in 2022 to two UPF events.
His murderer, Tetsuya Yamagami, accused Shinzo Abe of supporting the Unification Church. He was the son of a woman member of the Unification Church who made large donations some 22 years ago. He justified his crime by stating that his mother went bankrupt because of her donations to the Church. Why it took him 22 years to react he did not explain, nor did he mention that in 2009, upon the family’s request, half of the donations were returned to them.
What or who incited him to attack the Minister after this long time-lapse, no one seemed to question. One fact for sure is that Yamagami had ties to the anti-cult movement.
After the murder and his arrest, a media blitz started against the Unification Church, initiated by the lawyers’ Network.
At a press conference held by the Network on July 12, 2022, in response to the assassination, the lawyers, one after another, vehemently condemned the UC. They stated that, “As far as the former Unification Church is concerned, Tetsuya Yamagami (Abe’s assassin) and his mother are 100% the victims, and the cult is 100% the perpetrator.” They described the Unification Church as “anti-social” and “great evil.”
As a result of these media reports, loudspeaker trucks from far-right groups surrounded the headquarters and churches of the UC in major cities, blaring “Get out of Japan!” at high volumes. Threatening letters, including death threats, were sent via postcards and email. Church members faced discrimination at school, work, and society, while some were opposed by family members over their faith. In some cases, women were subjected to domestic violence from their husbands, resulting in injuries, or were forced to divorce.
The ensuing media frenzy put pressure on the Japanese Government to cut any ties with the Church and, under the accusations from the Lawyers’ Network making them responsible for the disaster, the Government officials initiated a dissolution procedure and passed several laws to eliminate the Church from the Japanese landscape.
The lost tort cases were used by the lawyers’ Network to fuel heavy accusations in the media and request dissolution, and in turn the media attacks put the courts under pressure to adopt more rulings to the Church’s disadvantage.
Finally, on 19 Oct. 2022, Prime Minister Kishida changed the interpretation of the Religious Corporate Act (RCA) on the requirements for the dissolution of religious corporations. Article 81 of the Act provides: “When the court finds that a cause which falls under any of the following items exists with regard to a religious corporation, it may order the dissolution of the religious corporation at the request of the competent authority, an interested person, or a public prosecutor, and by its own authority: (i) in violation of laws and regulations, the religious corporation commits an act which is clearly found to harm public welfare substantially…”
The Prime Minister decided overnight that civil findings of tort would constitute a “violation of laws and regulations” and a dissolution procedure was started against the Unification Church.
The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (“MEXT”) which oversees religious corporations, filed for dissolution. In the Japanese acronym, the “M” stands for Ministry, the “E” for Education, and the “T” for Technology. The “X” is used to represent “cross,” indicating the Ministry’s responsibility for the intersection of different fields such as culture, sport, science, and religion.
The MEXT started requesting information from the UC, which under Japanese law is the preliminary step to seek the dissolution of a religious corporation.
From November 2022 to July 2023, the MEXT exercised its right of question to the UC seven times. A wide range of inquiries were made, covering organizational and operational matters, but also legal matters such as lawsuits, complaints, and settlements, and the types of donations received. The inquiries also included a part on the religious doctrines and beliefs themselves, and how they could be used to have followers make donations to the Church.
Finally, on 13 October 2023, the MEXT filed a lawsuit at the Tokyo District Court requesting the dissolution of the Church, based on 32 lost tort cases.
The first hearing on the merits of the dissolution claim will be held at the Tokyo District Court in December 2024.
Tort Cases—The Rulings by Japanese Courts
The courts have unconditionally adopted the reasoning based on consumer law from the lawyers’ Network, as detailed above.
Under this reasoning, they ignored the faith of the Church members who raised donations and presumed that their purpose was only profit-making.
The courts considered that the beliefs that they professed was just a subterfuge for duping the new followers, in spite of recognizing the strong faith of UC members under “undue influence.”
In its plea for dissolution, the Ministry (MEXT) maintains the following (Plea for dissolution): “From around 1980 to 2023, UC believers caused significant damage to many people by making them donate or buy goods by restricting their free decision and preventing their normal judgment, which resulted in disrupting a peaceful life of many people including the family members of the guests [attendees of seminars or conferences].”
The grounds for this accusation are that the UC lost 32 court cases and was sentenced to pay damages.
MEXT concludes that the UC violated the law and committed acts which can clearly be “found to harm public welfare substantially,” pursuant to Article 81(i) of the Religious Corporate Act.
Apart from the fact that this provision of the Act contradicts blatantly UN recommendations as it is not a permitted limitation under Article 18.3 ICCPR, the reliance on the 32 court cases is flawed by at least five factors:
- In many of their findings, the courts mention that the “victims” were “rescued” or “protected,” another word for deprogrammed, which means that they were coerced into abandoning their faith and persuaded to sue the Church. It can be concluded that those cases were fabricated against the UC and the former followers’ faith at the time of their donations established for fact, since coercion was needed to have them recant their beliefs (note that out of the 32 tort cases, 121 claimants have been deprogrammed pursuant to court findings).
- The courts use the debunked theory of mental manipulation to reject evidence provided by the defense that the former believers chose at the time to donate on their own free will.
- The facts involved are very old (between forty to twenty years ago) but the courts used the same theory to deny the plea by the defense that they were time-barred (over three years old); they refused to apply the statute of limitation in force for civil suits, finding that the “victims” were not aware of being victims until they met with the anti-UC lawyers’ Network, as they were under the undue influence of the Church. This is a discriminatory application of the law.
- The courts applied a presumption of guilt if donations were deemed by them to be superior to what is “socially acceptable,” an arbitrary and vague notion used to rule the soliciting of donations illegal.
- The courts condemned the “use of the spiritual world” to obtain donations for the Church, i.e., the content of the doctrine related to the belief in karma, hell, and redemption, which is however inherent to religion itself and the right to establish and maintain religious institutions.
The 32 tort cases referred to by MEXT contain the same general theory on illegality: “When believers of a particular religious organization engage in the sale of goods, which is essentially a solicitation of donations, as part of their religious activities, such actions are not considered illegal as long as the methods, manner, and amounts are reasonable by social standards. However, if these actions are carried out under the name of religious activities with the sole purpose of gaining profit, increasing the anxiety or confusion of those solicited, and making them to spend excessively large amounts of money relative to their social status and assets, thereby significantly exceeding the socially acceptable scope, such actions must be deemed illegal.”
The argument of social acceptability, which is a vague and discriminatory notion, is used by the Japanese courts to restrict the right to proselytize of the UC and turn its proselytism into a tortious act.
The High Court of Tokyo, in a decision of 13 May 2003 cited by MEXT amongst the 32 tort cases supporting its dissolution request, ruled as follows: “The plaintiffs were then led to participate in a series of seminars (workshops) or training sessions and other activities in stages, allowing the doctrines, ‘Divine Principle,’ to gradually permeate their understanding. Furthermore, under the name of practicing the doctrine, they were engaged in specific missionary and economic activities. Even when the plaintiffs began to harbor doubts about the process by which they were recruited or the activities they were currently engaged in, they were made to believe that abandoning their faith would result in them and their entire family being deprived of salvation in this world. This created a psychological barrier, making it difficult for them to leave UC” (High Court of Tokyo, page 6, upholding the ruling of the Niigata District Court of 20 October 2002, page 147).
The very manifestation of belief through spreading the faith of the Unification Church is found to be tortious by the court, and deemed to infringe the victim’s free will. The court found: “In general, acts of soliciting and proselytizing to spread a religion, as well as engaging believers in various activities and soliciting donations, are considered within the scope of legitimate religious activities protected by the freedom of religion, as long as they are based on socially justifiable purposes and are reasonable in terms of methods and outcomes according to social norms. However, if these acts, when judged comprehensively in terms of purpose, method, and result, significantly deviate from socially acceptable scope, they should be deemed illegal. This holds true even if the solicited believers superficially appear to have joined the religious organization and acted based on their faith in its doctrine; such solicitation and proselytizing may still constitute tortious acts against believers who were persuaded to engage in missionary activities and make donations.”
This ruling was confirmed by the Supreme Court on 12 November 2004.
It must be concluded that, under the influence of the anti-UC Network of lawyers and the media, the courts have accepted the theory of mental manipulation in order to condemn the Church members for proselytizing and spreading their faith, in violation of their right to freedom of religion or belief.
The presumption of guilt against UC members is so strong amongst Japanese courts that, even if the defense can prove that the claimants gave donations on the basis of their faith, this evidence is disregarded and invalidated by the judges under the theory of undue influence.
Thus, the Church and its members are unable to make their voice heard and obtain justice before the domestic courts in Japan.
Patricia Duval is an attorney and a member of the Paris Bar. She has a Master in Public Law from La Sorbonne University, and specializes in international human rights law. She has defended the rights of minorities of religion or belief in domestic and international fora, and before international institutions such as the European Court of Human Rights, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the European Union, and the United Nations. She has also published numerous scholarly articles on freedom of religion or belief.
