Children whose parents are NRMs members are dealt with by anti-cult “counselors” in their schools.
by Patricia Duval*
*A report sent to several United Nations offices on September 22, 2024.
Article 5 of 5. Read article 1, article 2, article 3, and article 4.
Mental Manipulation
All the tort cases against the Unification Church are built on the concept of undue influence and mental manipulation.
In all these cases, the Courts assume that the UC has an undue influence and review the cases to find any elements to support their ruling that the soliciting of donations or proselytizing was not “socially acceptable” and thus tortious.
This theory of mental manipulation has no scientific basis and has been rejected by scholars internationally, as the European Court of Human Rights spelled out in its decision “Jehovah’s Witnesses of Moscow v. Russia” on 10 June 2010 (IC-302/02, 10 June 2010).
In this case, the association Jehovah’s Witnesses of Moscow had referred to the European Court the decision of a Russian court to dissolve their community.
The Court specifically reviewed the validity of the accusation by the Russian authorities that the right of citizens to freedom of conscience was violated because they were submitted to psychological pressure and “mind control” techniques.
After noting that members of the religious denomination testified before the Russian courts that they had made a free and voluntary choice of their religion and therefore followed its precepts of their own will, the Court found that “there is no generally accepted and scientific definition of what constitutes ‘mind control’ and that no definition of that term was given in the domestic judgments” (§ 128 and 129).
Accordingly, the Court ruled that “the findings of the Russian courts on this point were based on conjecture uncorroborated by fact” and found a violation by Russia of the right to freedom of religion or belief of the Jehovah’s Witnesses members.
In spite of this evolution in democratic countries, Japan brings back this debunked theory and, as Russia did against the Jehovah’s Witnesses, uses it to seek dissolution of the Unification Church.
The Japanese authorities have now designed a whole legal apparatus forged on this theory, in order to eliminate new religious movements from its religious landscape, starting with the dissolution of the Unification Church.
This includes the fact of including in the notion of “victims” the believers who might file complaints in the future—meaning implicitly when they are persuaded to do so—as they are deemed to not yet be aware of being victims.
Invalidating the free will of believers of new religious movements is equivalent to no less than denying them the freedom to choose to adopt new beliefs and considering them as mentally incompetent as concerns religious choices.
Using this theory, the State is then entitled to make choices for its citizens in their place in the name of protecting “public welfare.”
This constitutes a violation of the right of Japanese citizens to freedom to adopt a new religion or belief, and a blatant violation by Japan of its obligation of neutrality in religious matters under the international treaties it has signed and ratified.
Family Break-ups
Under the same reasoning and the concept of undue influence, the families are entitled to rescind donations pursuant to the new donations law, in lieu of their kin believers. They are also entitled, according to the Chairman of the National Federation of Bar Associations, to sue for damages claiming that the UC broke down their family relationships.
The European Court of Human Rights was faced with the same kind of accusation of family break-ups by the Russian government against the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the above-mentioned case.
And the Court found: “Nevertheless, as long as self-dedication to religious matters is the product of the believer’s independent and free decision and however unhappy his or her family members may be about that decision, the ensuing estrangement cannot be taken to mean that the religion caused the break-up in the family. Quite often, the opposite is true: it is the resistance and unwillingness of non-religious family members to accept and to respect their religious relative’s freedom to manifest and practice his or her religion that is the source of conflict” (§111).
This was precisely the case for the thousands of Japanese believers who were abducted by their families, locked up, and forced to undergo anti-UC indoctrination until they would accept to recant their faith.
After letting this practice continue for decades, Japan is now providing the possibility for the families who committed such acts to sue for damages due to the family break-ups caused by the conversion of their kin to the Unification Church in the first place.
And all this is possible with Unification Church money since the damages will be paid by the assets seized when the dissolution is decided to pay the “creditors,” i.e., all the potential claimants for the years to go.
This brings the following question: Do adult citizens have the right in Japan to convert to new religions if their families disagree?
The facts tell us that they do not, and this constitutes again a blatant violation of their right to choose and adopt the beliefs of their choice protected by international instruments.
State Organized Deprogramming
Article 18.2 of the Covenant provides: “No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.”
Coercion to recant one’s beliefs is clearly forbidden under the commitments made by Japan.
After the scandal of illegal abductions and enforced persuasion and the publication of pictures of Toru Goto emaciated and ill after his release from a twelve year-confinement, it seems that the Japanese State is now trying to organize a new form of “deprogramming,” without the embarrassing element of abduction.
However, the term “coercion” mentioned at Article 18.2 does not only refer to physical constraint but can also designate psychological pressure, such as in mandatory “counseling” against one’s faith.
On January 18, 2024, “Nikkei Shinbun,” one of the major newspapers in Japan, reported on a Cabinet meeting which took place on the same day entitled “Ministerial Conference on Supporting the Victims of the Former Unification Church.”
During the conference, a support plan was finalized based on the Special Measures Law passed in December 2023 (Law 89). The new support measures focus on victim relief, beyond the asset transfer monitoring and legal assistance for damage claims already enshrined in the Law. Later, the government announced the main points of its support plan on its website.
The relief measures are expressly designed for the Unification Church and relate to the special “counseling” to be delivered to “victims” or potential victims not yet aware of being victims, like the second-generation believers or children of the Unification Church members. The government establishes a new system in which former followers of the Unification Church, critical apostates, serve as instructors to provide “advice and guidance” to government counselors.
This system is based on the idea that, “Many victims under mind control are often unaware of their distress. Former followers will share their insights based on their experiences during training sessions for counselors.”
The training by apostates is supposed to “make it easier for counselors at child guidance centers and mental health and welfare centers to address these issues.”
The plan is tailor-made to deliver counseling to the UC believers and their children—second-generation believers—to make them aware that they have been manipulated and turn them against their Church.
In particular, the government will “expand the number of counselors and social workers stationed in schools to make it easier for children and young people from second-generation believers to seek help.”
According to the plan posted on the Government website, the Ministry of Justice is to “expand the number of schools where ‘Human Rights Classes’ are held (from elementary schools to junior high schools and high schools) and distribute the ‘Children’s Human Rights SOS Mini Letter’ to elementary and junior high school students.”
If the Human Rights Classes are held by counselors trained by apostates from the Unification Church, one can figure out their content. The SOS Mini Letter is an envelope distributed to the children to allow them to send an “SOS” to the authorities.
After inciting a help demand from the kids/students, the Government plans to support them to leave home. The new measures provide that they will be offered “a temporary living space away from their parents or other believers, facilitating their path to rebuilding their lives.”
Under the cover of helping problem children, the State is organizing an “exit counseling” at school to pressure second-generation believers to recant their beliefs and escape from their families; this is the new form of “deprogramming” that Japan has planned in January this year.
This institutionalized “counseling” to indoctrinate the children against their parents’ faith represents not only an infringement of their right to freedom of belief pursuant to Article 18.1 of the ICCPR but also to Article 14.1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC): “States Parties shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”
It also constitutes an outright violation of their parents’ right to educate their children according to their own faith pursuant to Article 18.4 of the ICCPR: “The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.”
And to Article 14.2 of the CRC: “States Parties shall respect the rights and duties of the parents and, when applicable, legal guardians, to provide direction to the child in the exercise of his or her right in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child.”
The plan tailor-made by the Government for the Unification Church also includes that the Children and Families Agency should provide support at child guidance centers, “based on the ‘Q&A regarding responses to child abuse related to religious beliefs.”
The Q&A they refer to are the Guidelines on child abuse related to religious beliefs, published on 27 December 2022 by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare.
We refer here to the report made by the Jehovah’s Witnesses on those Guidelines and the Special Rapporteurs’ letter to the Japanese Government expressing their concerns on the matter.
Conclusion
“Brainwashing evangelism” is a concept that has been coined in Japan to discriminate against the Unification Church’s faith-based activities.
The criterion of societal acceptability has been used and is being used by Japanese Courts to find its activities “anti-social” and tortious, including the spreading of the faith and soliciting of donations to maintain the Church institutions.
This in turn has been used by the Government to file for the dissolution of the Church in the name of “public welfare.”
Pending dissolution, and through the enactment of two tailor-made laws, the Japanese authorities have endeavored to hinder its activities and organized the plundering of the Church’s assets through fostering claims for damages from deprogrammed members.
Under the theory of undue influence, happy believers are stripped of their legal capacity in religious matters and their families are entitled to rescind their donations in their place, and to sue for damages for the alleged family break-up.
After endorsing the illegal deprogramming of the UC members for decades, the Japanese government is now organizing the reeducation of their children and the estrangement from their parents like in totalitarian States.
All these human rights violations result in a dramatic situation for the Unification Church believers and second-generation believers in Japan.
If nothing is done to stop this alarming trend of discriminatory repressive measures from the Japanese authorities, this religious movement will disappear, and its members will have to either relocate to another country or accept to recant their faith under coercion.
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.
