At the CESNUR 2024 conference, scholars, attorneys, and members of the church presented papers and testimonies. Videos are now available (with Japanese subtitles).
by Bitter Winter
On June 13, a plenary session of the 2024 yearly conference of CESNUR, held at the Bordeaux Montaigne University in Bordeaux, France, was devoted to “The Unification Church and Japan: What Is Exactly Happening?”
The session explored the religious liberty crisis that manifested itself in Japan after the assassination in 2022 of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The assassin claimed he was motivated by his hatred of the Unification Church (now called Family Federation for World Peace and Unification) and wanted to punish the politician for his sympathy for that religious organization. Paradoxically, the Unification Church, which was a victim of the crime, was blamed for it, and a series of events were set in motion that led to the government’s filing a legal action seeking the dissolution of the church as a religious corporation. The legal aspects of the case are now discussed in detail in a report submitted by French attorney Patricia Duval to several United Nations institutions and personalities.
In CESNUR’s trademark style, the session featured both scholars, attorneys, and members of the Family Federation who offered their testimonies. “Bitter Winter” now presents the videos of this session. It was chaired by Eileen Barker, professor emeritus at the London School of Economics and one of the founders of the academic subfield of the study of new religious movements, and opened by an introduction to the issue by Massimo Introvigne, CESNUR’s managing director and editor-in-chief of “Bitter Winter.”
Eileen Barker’s introduction and Massimo Introvigne’s paper.
Tomihiro Tanaka, President of the Family Federation of Japan, sent a video message (available in Japanese), whose text was subsequently published in English.
Attorney Tatsuki Nakayama, one of the Japanese lawyers of the Family Federation (of which he is not a member) presented the main legal themes of the case.
Presentation by attorney Tatsuki Nakayama.
Nakayama’s testimony was supplemented by the remarks of Norishige Kondo, in-house attorney of the Family Federation in Japan.
Remarks by attorney Norishige Kondo.
Moriko Hori, President of the Women’s Federation for World Peace Japan, reported how her organization is discriminated and harassed in Japan because of its connections with the Family Federation.
Testimony of Moriko Hori.
Suzuko Hirschmann, a member of the Unification Church who went through the terrifying experience of deprogramming, also spoke in the session.
Testimony of Suzuko Hirschmann.
Michael Balcomb, President of the Europe and Middle East Region of the Family Federation, offered the final testimony.
Testimony of Michael Balcomb.
