“Bitter Winter”’s editor discusses with the Japanese magazine the role of the anti-cult ideologists in creating the post-Abe-assassination campaign against the Family Federation.
by Makiko Takita
Article 3 of 6. Read article 1 and article 2.
Massimo Introvigne was born in Rome in 1955. A sociologist of religion, in 2011 he served as the Representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe for combating racism, xenophobia, and intolerance and discrimination against Christians and members of other religions. From 2012 to 2015, he was Chairman of the Observatory of Religious Freedom established by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is editor-in-chief of “Bitter Winter,” a daily web magazine on religious freedom and human rights. “Seiron” has compiled his answers in an interview he gave to us in Tokyo on the Unification Church case.
“As a sociologist of religion, as somebody who has served as representative of an international human rights organization, and as a human being, I am watching with great concern the current developments in Japan regarding the request for a dissolution order against the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (Unification Church). The government is trying to dismantle a religious organization that has not committed a single crime in Japan, a free and democratic country that guarantees freedom of religion or belief (FoRB). I have been working around the world to defend FoRB for decades, but this is the first time I have seen such a request for dissolution in a democratic country, and it is a great shock to me.”
“Looking around the world, even in the United States, for example, there is criticism towards the Unification Church. There are many critical books and articles. However, no one in the U.S. would say that the activities of the Unification Church should be controlled by the state or that it should be dissolved.
The same is true in Italy. There are various critical articles and reports on the Unification Church, but there is certainly no concrete government action to legally regulate its activities. In France, the government has set up an agency to combat the ‘deviances’ of cults (called ‘sectes’ in French). It is true that the Unification Church is not its major target. Rather, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientology are the main targets. At any rate, this agency has never tried to dissolve the Unification Church.”
“The situation is different in Russia and China. In Russia, the Russian government dissolved the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2017 based on a court decision. In the case of China, there is a system of designating ‘heterodox’ religions (xie jiao), and several organizations are on that list. The Unification Church is included. Regardless of whether or not they have committed a crime, when organizations are put on that list, they are heavily persecuted in China. However, China and Russia are not democratic regimes. The situation in China is quite different from that in Japan in terms of what constitutes a crime in the first place.”
“Of course, even democracies have systems for dissolving religious and other organizations. However, its application is limited in general to cases where a crime has been committed—I mean, crimes punishable under the penal code. For example, in Germany, a Nazi organization called Artgemeinschaft that the media had called a ‘cult’ was dissolved in September 2023. Germany is a little bit different from the U.S. and Italy and has traditionally been more hostile to ‘cults.’ But on the other hand, Germany also values fairness. For example, some 25 years ago, a committee was set up to investigate ‘cults,’ and I was called as a witness. When I looked at the final report that was prepared, I found that it included the opinions of experts from a wide variety of perspectives and that the content was balanced. This is probably because the investigation itself was conducted in a fair manner. Concerning the dissolution of Artgemeinschaft, this organization was more a political group rooted in Nazism rather than a religious movement. Its dissolution was also requested based on criminal activities.”
“The current situation in Japan, where the Japanese government is pushing ahead to dissolve under the Religious Corporations Act a church that has not been criminally punished, is really unique and unusual in a country that upholds democracy and guarantees freedom of religion. I am the editor-in-chief of a daily web magazine called ‘Bitter Winter,’ which covers news about religious freedom violations around the world. I carefully watch the Chinese media, and every week an article about the dissolution of the Unification Church in Japan always catches my eye. The articles are full of claims that ‘Japan is doing the same thing as China’ ‘We have been proven right,’ ‘Cults should be suppressed,’ and so on. Similar arguments can be read in the Russian government-affiliated media, and the current events in Japan are being used for propaganda purposes by China and Russia. We would do well to keep this in mind.”
“It all started on July 8, 2022. A man who wanted to kill former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who had sent a video message to an organization affiliated with the Unification Church, shot and killed Abe while he was delivering a public speech. The man’s mother was a devoted member of the Unification Church, and the man harbored a grudge against the Unification Church. I noted that the man had been interacting with journalists and other opponents of the Unification Church on social media before the incident. Obviously, I do not believe that they encouraged him to kill Abe, but I wonder if they might have excited his hostility to punish the Unification Church. Why did the man commit such a heinous act? I do not believe that this has been fully clarified. Next, I would like to note that a few days after the incident, the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales (hereinafter we [Seiron] will refer to it as the National Federation of Bar Associations) held a press conference, and since then, the Unification Church was put in a position to be criticized. The National Federation of Bar Associations is a group of lawyers that has been pursuing the Unification Church for many years. It was only after the press conference that the reversal phenomenon began, in which the Unification Church, which was in fact the victim, became the perpetrator to blame, and the man who was supposed to be the perpetrator was treated as if he were the victim.”
“Such reversals are not uncommon in the world of anti-cult movements. For example, in June 2022, a murder case occurred in South Korea. The husband killed his ex-wife, who was a member of the new religion Shincheonji. There is in Korea an ‘Association of Victims of Shincheonji,’ which came out and held a press conference, saying, ‘This husband now will have to spend his life in prison because his wife joined Shincheonji. He is himself a victim of Shincheonji’—and the emotion grew. Last March [2023] in Germany, a former member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses broke into a place of worship of this religion, called Kingdom Hall, and killed eight people with a gun. Then, some members of the anti-cult movement, which opposes Jehovah’s Witnesses, came forward and criticized the religion, saying that the cause of the incident was that ‘the Jehovah’s Witnesses have continued to abuse this man,’ and called for the religious organization to bear the brunt of the blame. The anti-cult movement deflected the blame from the mistakes of the authorities [who had given a license to carry weapons to a mentally disturbed man] and tried to create a campaign against the Jehovah’s Witnesses. This is how the roles of victims and perpetrators are reversed. This is common not only in Japan, but in all countries where there are anti-cult movements, and they can be found everywhere. The strategies of the anti-cult movements are similar all over the world, and what they do is similar as well.”
“However, there is a crucial difference. Only in Japan has the government totally jumped on the bandwagon. In Korea and Germany, the media reports on the voices of anti-cult movements, and this can cause a lot of commotion. Sometimes there are campaigns to condemn these groups as ‘cults.’ However, there is no example of a democratic government reacting to such a campaign and moving toward the dissolution of the organization.”
“In Japan, the government and the National Federation of Bar Associations have also teamed up at the stage of the various procedures for this request for a dissolution order. This should not happen. The cooperation of the government and the LDP itself with the National Federation of Bar Associations is, in the first place, an ideologically and politically strange spectacle. The media makes a fuss, and when the media makes a fuss, it becomes public opinion. And I am aware that the politicians acted that way in the sense of appeasing the media for fear of adversely affecting the voting behavior in the elections. But the dissolution of a religious institution should not be determined by public opinion. The decision should be determined by the law. I am told that public opinion polls now show that nearly 80% of the Japanese are in favor of dissolving the Unification Church. It looks like there are many in Japan who approve of the dissolution. But it is wrong to act for dissolution on that basis. Maybe in some European countries 80% of the respondents in a poll would say that they dislike Islam, but that would not be a justification for enacting a law putting the Islamic faith under the control of the state. Again, it is a matter to be decided according to the law, not polls or the so-called public opinion.”
“It is unthinkable that the government would seek the cooperation of the leaders of the anti-cult movement or that it would rely on them to proceed with the dissolution of the Unification Church. Overnight, the government changed its policy, stating that religious corporations can be dissolved for tortious acts under the Civil Code, not only if they have been found guilty in criminal cases. This is also strange. If religious corporations can be dissolved for torts under civil law, there is no such thing as a safe organization. This shows that this was not a legal decision, but a political decision. What the Japanese government has done is a clear violation of the principle of religious freedom. It is a move that should be strongly condemned. The fact that the government has requested a dissolution order will be interpreted to mean that the government has evaluated the Unification Church as an organization that deserves to be dissolved. In the future, there is a fear that the private sector will follow the government’s lead and start saying, ‘We will have nothing to do with them.’ This is undeniable religious discrimination, which is unacceptable in light of international law, which stipulates that there shall be no discrimination based on ideology, creed, religion, or other such grounds.
What I mean is that I am concerned that this request for dissolution may have a ripple effect. There have already been a series of discriminatory incidents in the past, such as the refusal of local governments to rent public facilities to independent organizations that are not inherently religious but are connected with the Family Federation, or resolutions calling for a severance of relations with such organizations in local government councils.”
“There are precedents outside Japan. For example, in the state of Bavaria, Germany, it was decreed that those wishing to work for a government agency must declare that they are not Scientologists or have attended Scientology courses, or they will not be hired. As I mentioned earlier, Germany has a restrictive policy against ‘cults,’ and in some parts of the country local administrations have introduced the so-called ‘sect filter,’ which means that to be hired for certain jobs you should not be a member of Scientology or other groups stigmatized as ‘cults.’ However, when this system was implemented and Scientologists went to court and complained that it was discriminatory, in general they won their cases. For example, in the city of Munich, Germany, there is an incentive program to subsidize the purchase of electrical bikes to promote ecological policies. The local government requested those who applied for these subsidies to sign a statement that they were not Scientologists. However, whether the administrative procedure for subsidizing the purchase electrical bikes might include the question of whether one is a Scientologist or not was the subject matter of a court case. Finally, in 2021, the Court of Appeal ruled against the city administration and rejected its argument that, if they bought the bikes, Scientologists would use them to go to Scientology meetings.”
“What is interesting about Germany is that, while there are still some local ‘sect filters,’ when members of ‘cults’ complain of discrimination and file lawsuits, normally they win and the courts side with them. In the end, legal remedies are provided by the judiciary, and the courts restore freedom of religion. But what about Japan? To me, it seems that sometimes the government and the courts are in collusion. I am afraid that religious discrimination similar to this German case may occur in Japan in the future, and I wonder how it will be judged. I am very concerned.”