Writer: Yoshihide Sakurai, Hokkaido College
Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was shot lifeless on 8 July 2022 in Nara Prefecture whereas giving a marketing campaign speech in assist of a Liberal Democratic Get together (LDP) candidate standing within the Home of Councillors election. The assassination has led to public scrutiny of the hyperlinks between the Unification Church and the LDP regardless of the suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, telling police that the assassination ‘was not [an act of] revenge in opposition to [Abe’s] political religion’.
Yamagami alluded to the assassination earlier than the incident, posting on his weblog that ‘[Mr Abe was] probably the most influential Unification Church sympathisers’. Yamagami stays imprisoned for psychiatric analysis.
The Japanese media has tended to keep away from cult-related points because the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin assault during which members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult (now generally known as Aleph) killed 13 civilians and injured one other 6000. There may be now vital uncertainty in Japan in regards to the injury brought on by the Unification Church. This consists of injury brought on by its exorbitantly costly gross sales of ‘psychic’ ginseng tea and marble vases to supposedly ‘appease’ ancestral spirits in addition to coerced donations.
Nonetheless, international media shops have raised questions on why conservative politicians — who’re members of Nippon Kaigi, the Shinto Affiliation of Non secular Management and different spiritual organisations —supported the Unification Church. The international press was particularly interested in why former prime minister Shinzo Abe, who refused to just accept state duty for the forcible mobilisation of consolation girls by the Imperial Japanese Military, supported the actions of the Unification Church and its associated organisations.
The Unification Church started missionary work in Japan in 1959. It’s a conglomerate of a number of organisations. First, the Holy Spirit Affiliation for the Unification of World Christianity, a Christian spiritual motion based in Seoul by Solar Myung Moon in 1954. Second, a political organisation established in 1968 referred to as the Worldwide Federation for Victory Over Communism. Third, a group of South Korean enterprise entities and, extra not too long ago, the Common Peace Federation — a UN NGO involved with peace and girls’s points.
On the core of its teachings is the Korean shamanistic ritual of expelling the resentment of the lifeless and their ancestors. The Unification Church’s development technique attracts on Korean resentment over Japanese colonial rule and a robust perception in in search of redemption for conflict crimes dedicated by Japan between 1937–1945.
In response to a survey carried out by the Nationwide Community of Attorneys Towards Non secular Gross sales, there have been 34,537 instances reported to bar associations and client centres throughout Japan from 1987 to 2021, amounting to US$854,576,997 in damages. In response to former govt members, many of the cash went to the South Korean headquarters of the Unification Church and was used for funding in South Korean Unification Church-affiliated corporations, lobbying actions and political teams.
The church’s practices have resulted in labour exploitation and the monetary deprivation of believers in Japan because the Nineteen Eighties. In response to a survey carried out by the Nationwide Community of Attorneys Towards Non secular Gross sales, there have been 34 legal instances filed in opposition to the Unification Church from 1970 to 2021. The courts fined Unification Church members for violations of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Regulation and the Specified Business Transactions Regulation. There have been additionally 28 claims for damages that resulted in judgments handed down by civil courts ordering the Unification Church to pay compensation. The Unification Church has, in different instances, paid settlements to victims based mostly on victim-led petitions.
Nonetheless, politicians from the LDP haven’t hesitated to obtain free electoral assist from the church and communicate effectively of the group at conferences held by associated organisations. The Nationwide Police Company and the judiciary have shunned submitting fraud costs in opposition to the Unification Church for its fundraising strategies — that are generally labelled as a ‘psychic enterprise’. The Spiritual Affairs Division of the Company for Cultural Affairs, which has jurisdiction over spiritual administrations, has by no means filed in opposition to the Unification Church to dissolve its spiritual companies.
Investigative stories over the previous month reveal that no less than 180 out of 379 LDP lawmakers in Japan’s Nationwide Weight-reduction plan have ties with the Unification Church. This embrace 23 out of 54 members appointed as vice-ministers and parliamentary secretaries within the second Kishida cupboard, shaped after the October 2021 higher home election, have ties with the church. After the Japanese public found the extent to which the Unification Church had entrenched itself in Japanese politics, Kishida’s cupboard approval score plummeted from 52 per cent to 36 per cent in only one month.
Liberal Democratic Get together politicians obtain electoral assist from the Unification Church, together with the dispatch of believers to volunteer in election campaigns and the mediation of organisational votes. In return, many LDP lawmakers have change into billboards for the Unification Church. They’re usually seen giving beneficial speeches at church conferences and associated organisations.
Considerations raised by lawmakers from opposition events have usually been ignored by the media and authorities officers. That enabled the Unification Church to develop intensive relationships with Japanese political events, notably LDP lawmakers, and obtain political patronage.
The Unification Church was instantly dropped at public consideration by Tetsuya Yamagami — a younger man despondent in regards to the extent to which Japanese politicians and the mass media had ignored the issues related to the organisation. He claims that his mom revamped 100 million yen (US$670,000) in donations to the Unification Church, forcing his household into chapter 11 and ruining his life.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida carried out a state funeral for former prime minister Shinzo Abe on 27 September 2022. However the public expressed dissatisfaction with allegations that Abe had inherited his relationship with the Unification Church from his grandfather, former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, and that he was managing the organisation’s votes.
In response to an Yomiuri Shimbun ballot, 56 per cent of the general public was against the state funeral. Police clashed with funeral protestors in entrance of the Nationwide Weight-reduction plan. No G7 leaders got here to Japan for the condolence diplomacy deliberate by Kishida, with nationwide opinion nonetheless divided.
Yoshihide Sakurai is a Professor of Sociology at Hokkaido College, Japan.
