bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

sponsorType

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

paywallTypes

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Associated Press

The Unification Church in Japan was ordered dissolved by a court on Tuesday after a government request spurred by the investigation into the 2022 assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe.
The church said it was considering an immediate appeal of the Tokyo District Court’s revocation of its legal status, which would take away its tax-exempt privilege and require liquidation of its assets.
The order followed a request by Japan’s Education Ministry in 2023 to dissolve the influential South Korea-based sect, citing manipulative fundraising and recruitment tactics that sowed fear among followers and harmed their families.
“We believe our claims were accepted,” culture minister Toshiko Abe said.
The Japanese branch of the church had criticised the request as a serious threat to religious freedom and the human rights of its followers.
The church called the court order regrettable and unjust and said in a statement the court’s decision was based on “a wrong legal interpretation and absolutely unacceptable”.


However, the church will still be able to continue religious practices, lawyer Katsuomi Abe said before Tuesday’s ruling.
“Its reputation will decline, and the number of followers will decrease”, said Abe, who represents former believers seeking compensation after making huge donations.
“I don’t think any other organisation has caused such damage” to Japanese society, he said.
The investigation into Shinzo Abe’s assassination revealed decades of cosy ties between the South Korea-based church and Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic Party. The church obtained legal status as a religious organisation in Japan in 1968 amid an anti-communist movement supported by Abe’s grandfather, former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi.
The man accused of killing Abe resented the church and blamed it for his family’s financial troubles.


The church, which officially calls itself the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, is the first religious group to face a revocation order under Japan’s civil code. Two earlier case involved criminal charges – the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, which carried out a sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system, and Myokakuji group, whose executives were convicted of fraud.
To seek the church’s dissolution, the Education Ministry had submitted 5,000 documents and pieces of evidence to the court, based on interviews with more than 170 people.
The church tried to steer its followers’ decision-making, using manipulative tactics, making them buy expensive goods and donate beyond their financial ability and causing fear and harm to them and their families, seriously deviating from the law on religious groups, officials and experts say.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs said the settlements reached in or outside court exceeded 20 billion yen (US$132 million) and involved more than 1,500 people.

The church, founded in Seoul in 1954, a year after the end of the Korean war, by the late Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the self-proclaimed messiah who preached new interpretations of the Bible and conservative, family-oriented value systems.
It developed relations with conservative world leaders including US President Donald Trump, as well as his predecessors Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
The church faced accusations in the 1970s and 1980s of using devious recruitment tactics and brainwashing adherents into turning over huge portions of their salaries to Moon. In Japan, the group has faced lawsuits for offering “spiritual merchandise” that allegedly caused members to buy expensive art and jewellery or sell their real estate to raise donations for the church.
The church has acknowledged excessive donations but says the problem has lessened since the group stepped up compliance in 2009.
Experts say Japanese followers are asked to pay for sins committed by their ancestors during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula, and that the majority of the church’s worldwide funding comes from Japan.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse, Kyodo


Head of Japan's Unification Church vows to fight loss of legal protections

Japan fights decade-high norovirus surge with 34,000 cases amid ‘unseasonal’ outbreak

ComplexCon Hong Kong wraps up 3-day event with 35,000 turnout, rakes in HK$87.5 million

Japan braces for blow from Trump’s car tariffs as Ishiba weighs countermeasures

Japan

Japan court orders Unification Church dissolved after Shinzo Abe assassination probe

The logo of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, known as the Unification Church, is seen at the entrance of the Japanese branch’s headquarters in Tokyo. Photo: AFP

The Tokyo headquarters of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, known as the Unification Church. Photo: AFP

Unification Church Founder Sun Myung Moon (left) and his wife. Photo: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

‘Ramadan slap’ in Malaysia goes viral as social media responds with satire

Verdi Kornelis Omjai posts a photo of himself eating with his identity card on the table to prove he isn’t Malay on social media. Photo: Facebook/Verdi Kornelis Omjai

A screengrab from the viral video showing an elderly Muslim man confronting a non-Muslim for eating during Ramadan. Photo: X/bingbing656

Ernest Ng’s four-panel comic of a Chinese-looking Malay man eating while the slap altercation is happening in the background. Photo: X/Ernest Ng

Unification Church accuses Japan of ‘bias’, vows to fight on as disbandment looms

The Tokyo headquarters of the Unification Church in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo. Photo: AFP

Members of the Unification Church attend a rally in Seoul on August 18, 2022 to protest against the media coverage the group received in Japan following the assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. Photo: AFP

A person walks past a branch of the Unification Church in Tokyo. Photo: Xinhua

Japan to investigate coercion in ‘spiritual sales’ by Unification Church, but is it too little, too late?

Couples attend a mass wedding ceremony in South Korea organised by the Unification Church. Japan has set up a panel to investigate “spiritual sales” by the church. Photo: AFP

Taro Kono, the new minister overseeing consumer affairs, has stated he will examine how claims against the Unification Church have been handled in the past. Photo: Kyodo

Church or cult? Abe murder spotlights Unification Church and other South Korean ‘pseudo-religious’ groups

Former followers of South Korea’s Shincheonji Church, which was criticised for its public gatherings during the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: AFP

Soldiers spray disinfectant to prevent the spread of coronavirus in front of a branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Daegu, South Korea. Photo: AP

30 years on, victims of Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin attack on Tokyo subway still traumatised

An anti-terrorist drill is conducted at a Tokyo Metro facility on Friday, ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Aum Shinrikyo cult’s sarin nerve gas attack. Photo: Kyodo

A Japanese transit worker sits beside the body of a man felled by the sarin gas attack on March 20, 1995. Photo: Getty Images

Followers of Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo chant in religious training before a portrait of guru Shoko Asahara at Aum’s Adachi office in Tokyo, Japan on July 19, 1999. Photo: Reuters

News

Asia

East Asia

The man accused of killing former PM Shinzo Abe resented the South Korea-based sect, which had decades of cosy ties to Japan’s ruling party


The man accused of killing former PM Shinzo Abe resented the South Korea-based sect, which had decades of cosy ties to Japan’s ruling party.


South Korea

Religion

Shinzo Abe

Cults

Japan court orders Unification Church dissolved after Shinzo Abe assassination probe

The man accused of killing former PM Shinzo Abe resented the South Korea-based sect, which had decades of cosy ties to Japan’s ruling party

nproxy.org