A perverse machine fabricated “victims” and legal cases that later became the ground for seeking the Church’s dissolution.
by Patricia Duval
Read the articles of which we offer here a summary: article 1, article 2, article 3, article 4, article 5, article 6, and article 7.
In 1987, in Japan, a group of attorneys of radical left-wing political persuasion created a network of lawyers with the expressly stated purpose of fighting for the elimination of the Unification Church (now known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification) from Japan.
The association, known as the National Network of Lawyers against Spiritual Sales (“NNLSS”), was established with the express aim of eliminating the Unification Church at a time when the latter was opposing atheistic Communism, which it saw as a threat to spirituality in Asia in the post-World War II era.
The Network started to combat the Church actively and, to this end, supported the violent “deprogramming,” the coerced de-conversion from alleged “brainwashing” of Church members, who were then forced into testifying as “victims” and into suing the Church for damages.
Over forty years, around 4,300 members of the Unification Church in Japan were subjected to this violent “rescue” process. They were abducted and confined by families and coerced into listening to indoctrination by “deprogrammers,” who were most often Protestant pastors. This process involved harsh criticism of Unification Church beliefs and false reports on its alleged criminal activities. This confinement and indoctrination were carried on for months or years, until the victims would finally recant their faith.
The Lawyers’ Network has used and encouraged these faith-breaking practices for decades, by referring parents to deprogrammers who would then send the broken-faith members back to the lawyers. The now former members were then faced with demands to sue the Church to prove their apostasy and to be released from confinement.
This systematic filing of civil suits resulted in several tort rulings, in which those who, after deprogramming, had been forced to play the role of plaintiffs, claimed that they had been “mind controlled.” Based on such rulings, the lawyers pressured the government to file for dissolution of the Church, a request the Tokyo District Court granted on March 25 this year.
Facing accusations concerning their involvement in deprogramming, the lawyers of the Network pretended that they had referred parents to pastors without knowing that their “rescue” would imply physical restraint and coercion.
The facts blatantly contradict this denial, and the lawyers’ contribution went beyond mere knowledge. It was planned in advance and involved the lawyers’ active participation, as evidenced by the following facts.
First, the truth of this is evidenced by a case of absolute clarity, a Habeas Corpus petition filed on behalf of a confined believer and fought by two hundred lawyers, led by the most prominent NNLSS attorney.
In 1987, the same year NNLSS was created, no less than two hundred lawyers fought in court against the release of one unfortunate Church believer who was being confined by his family and subjected to intense pressure to leave the Church. These lawyers admitted the confinement but justified it based on the confined members’ parents’ “legitimate authority” over a 28-year-old adult, and a “social norm” of reasonable measures to remedy an “emergency situation,” i.e., the conversion of their son to the Unification Church.
Second, this is evidenced by another Habeas Corpus case in which one of the leading NNLSS lawyers visited a believer who was being confined and deprogrammed, and encouraged the parents to continue, telling them it was “not illegal.”
In this case, a 30-year-old medical doctor in Tokyo was abducted and confined for nearly two years. After some months, realizing that he could not escape, he pretended to have lost his faith and was then put through a “rehabilitation” period at a local Protestant Church. To prove his apostasy, he was obliged to visit other confined members and participate in their indoctrination against the Church. He was finally escorted to an NNLSS lawyer’s office and forced to file a financial claim against the Unification Church to prove that he really intended to leave it. He eventually escaped, withdrew his claim, and hid for another couple of years for fear of being abducted again. He finally wrote a book, the publication of which protected him from further confinement.
Third, the lawyers’ involvement is further evidenced by the pact sealed by the Lawyers’ Network with pastors engaged in “rescue” activities and the publication of a “Deprogramming Guide” for parents.
During a two-day meeting held in 1991, in that church’s conference room, a pastor from the United Church of Christ in Japan (UCCJ) stated that the “youth return cases” were the most effective means of countering the Unification Church. The “youth return cases” were a series of court cases brought by the Lawyers’ Network after young adults had been coerced to recant their faith.
Attorney Hiroshi Yamaguchi, the lead figure of the Lawyers’ Network and the lawyer in relation to these cases, was present at the meeting. The participants agreed to continue the “rescue” activities, focusing on the youth return cases, “to bring about the Unification Church’s destruction.” The purpose could not have been stated more clearly.
In 1990, a “Rescue Manual” was published by a pastor from the UCCJ, which instructed parents on how to “rescue” their adult children. These included “ambushing the believers” and “forcing them into a car,” calling on a specialized pastor to deliver criticism of the Unification Church, “tying up their legs” if the believer refused to speak with the Pastor, or “using other means to compel acquiescence.”
Fourth, the lawyers’ role is clear from the testimonies in court of the leading figures of NNLSS and some pastors who specialized in “deprogramming.”
In 2015, the leading figure in NNLSS, attorney Hiroshi Yamaguchi, testified in court that the Network had been referring parents to pastors specializing in the “rescue” of Unification Church believers for years.
In 1996, in a civil suit in which the same lawyer Hiroshi Yamaguchi was part of the litigation team, the plaintiffs’ deprogrammer testified that confinement was broadly used by pastors involved in “rescue” activities nationwide. He further stated that coercion was necessary to get believers to recant their faith: “Once someone has firmly embraced the Unification Church’s beliefs, I believe it is impossible for them to leave of their own accord.”
Hence, the parents were sent to those pastors precisely because of their coercive methods, given that, as the deprogrammer explained in court, the believers would not leave the Church of their own accord.
Fifth and last, the part played by the lawyers is shown by NNLSS’ direct intervention in alerting parents who had not complained of anything, to incite them to deprogram their children who were believers, against their will.
Attorney Hiroshi Watanabe, a member of NNLSS, sent letters to parents of Unification Church members, warning them that “As long as their children remained affiliated with the Unification Church, it would be impossible for them to leave on their own.” He told them it was necessary “to consult with a pastor of the United Church of Christ in Japan who is knowledgeable about this issue, or with me, to consider rescuing X.”
In this way, the lawyers of NNLSS intervened early in the process to refer clients to the deprogrammers and created “victims” to achieve their aim of destroying the Church.
As explained by the deprogrammer in court, all of the above point to the complicity of the Japanese state in this whole deprogramming phenomenon. Not only has the participation of these lawyers in the illegal activities of confinement and coercive de-conversion of Unification Church followers not been subjected to disciplinary sanctions by the Japanese Bar Association, but the Japanese courts have relied on them in the civil tort decisions the government based its dissolution request on.
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.
