Courtroom in Japan orders the dissolution of the Unification Church

TOKYO — The Unification Church in Japan was ordered dissolved by a court docket Tuesday after a authorities request spurred by the investigation into the 2022 assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The South Korea-based church stated it was contemplating a direct enchantment of the Tokyo District Courtroom’s revocation of its authorized standing, which might take away its tax-exempt privilege and require liquidation of its property.

The order adopted a request by Japan’s Schooling Ministry in 2023 to dissolve the influential sect, citing manipulative fundraising and recruitment techniques that sowed concern amongst followers and harmed their households.

Within the ruling, the court docket stated the church’s issues had been in depth and steady, and {that a} dissolution order was essential as a result of it’s not doubtless it may voluntarily reform, in response to NHK tv.

“We consider our claims had been accepted,” Chief Cupboard Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi instructed reporters, including that the federal government would proceed efforts to assist victims of the church.

The Japanese department of the church had criticized the request as a critical menace to non secular freedom and the human rights of its followers.

The church referred to as the court docket order regrettable and unjust and stated in an announcement that the court docket’s choice was based mostly on “a flawed authorized interpretation and completely unacceptable.”

Tomihiro Tanaka, president of the church’s Japanese department, accused the federal government of “fabricating damages.” The church is “not a malicious group that ought to be dissolved,” he instructed a information convention on Tuesday.

The investigation into Abe’s assassination revealed hyperlinks over many years between the church and Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic Get together. The church obtained authorized standing as a non secular group in Japan within the Sixties throughout an anti-communist motion supported by Abe’s grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi.

The person accused of killing Abe resented the church and blamed it for his household’s monetary troubles.

The church, which formally calls itself the Household Federation for World Peace and Unification, is the primary non secular group topic to a revocation order based mostly on violations of Japan’s civil code. Two earlier instances concerned prison expenses — the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, which carried out a sarin nerve gasoline assault on the Tokyo subway system, and Myokakuji group, whose executives had been convicted of fraud.

To hunt the church’s dissolution, the Schooling Ministry had submitted 5,000 paperwork and items of proof to the court docket, based mostly on interviews with greater than 170 folks.

The church tried to steer its followers’ decision-making, utilizing manipulative techniques, making them purchase costly items and donate past their monetary means and inflicting concern and hurt to them and their households, critically deviating from the legislation on non secular teams, officers and consultants say.

The Company for Cultural Affairs stated the settlements reached in or outdoors court docket exceeded 20 billion yen ($132 million) and concerned greater than 1,500 folks.

Attorneys representing these looking for damages from the church welcomed the court docket choice as a serious first step towards redress.

“We should pursue our effort to realize redress and to forestall future issues,” head lawyer Susumu Murakoshi instructed reporters, demanding that the church settle for the dissolution order and supply an apology and compensation to all victims.

The church was based in Seoul in 1954 by the late Rev. Solar Myung Moon, the self-proclaimed messiah who preached new interpretations of the Bible and conservative, family-oriented worth techniques.

Nicknamed the “Moonies,” after its founder, the church developed relations with conservative world leaders together with President Donald Trump, in addition to his predecessors Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

The church confronted accusations within the Nineteen Seventies and Nineteen Eighties of utilizing devious recruitment techniques and brainwashing adherents into turning over enormous parts of their salaries to Moon. In Japan, the group has confronted lawsuits for providing “non secular merchandise” that allegedly induced members to purchase costly artwork and jewellery or promote their actual property to boost donations for the church.

The church has acknowledged extreme donations however says the issue has lessened for the reason that group stepped up compliance in 2009.

Consultants say Japanese followers are requested to pay for sins dedicated by their ancestors throughout Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, and that almost all of the church’s worldwide funding comes from Japan.