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Following the assassination of Japan’s former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, collusive relations between Japanese conservative politicians and the Unification Church have been revealed in a gradual drip, spurring public mistrust within the precept of separation of church and state outlined by the nation’s structure.
Most just lately, Japanese Protection Minister Kishi Nobuo – Abe’s youthful brother– stated on July 26 that he had obtained assist in previous elections from members of the Unification Church. Kishi is simply the newest ruling get together lawmaker to reveal connections with the spiritual group on the middle of controversy over Abe’s assassination on July 8.
Abe’s assailant, Yamagami Tetsuya, 41, has informed investigators that he held a robust grudge towards the church formally generally known as the Household Federation for World Peace and Unification, a spiritual group established in Seoul in 1954 by South Korean spiritual chief Moon Solar Myung (1920-2012) and finest recognized for its mass marriage ceremony ceremonies.
Based on the police, Yamagami blamed the spiritual group for bankrupting his mom by forcing her to donate greater than 100 million yen ($732,400) to the church and ruining his household by pushing his older brother to suicide. Yamagami grew up in a single-mother house after his father dedicated suicide in 1984 when the suspect was 4 years outdated, which made his mom flip to faith for consolation.
Yamagami stated he focused Abe due to his hyperlinks to the church. It was recognized that Abe had some ties with the group, as he had despatched a video message to an occasion held by the Common Peace Federation, a friendship group of the church, in September 2021.
Yamagami’s legal act can by no means be tolerated and he must be strictly punished in response to the legislation. However the improper collusion between politicians and the Unification Church, usually described by critics as a cult, can’t be ignored.
It’s broadly recognized that because the Nineteen Eighties this church has induced quite a few social issues in Japan, together with the infamous “spiritual-pressure gross sales” technique. This fraudulent enterprise scheme includes cajoling individuals into shopping for pots and seals, books, treasure towers, and so forth at exorbitant costs, claiming these things will break the evil spell of ancestors.
Based on the Nationwide Community of Legal professionals In opposition to Religious Gross sales, there have been 34,537 consultations with complete damages amounting to 123.7 billion yen ($906 million) in relation to the Unification Church between 1987 and 2021. Final yr alone, there have been 47 consultations with complete damages amounting to about 331 million yen ($2.4 million).
Suganuma Mitsuhiro, 86, a former high-ranking officer of the Public Safety Intelligence Company in Japan, stated in an interview with The Diplomat earlier this month that the federal government has been unable to cease the church’s delinquent conduct due to the liberty of faith assured within the structure.
Suganuma stated the connection between the ruling Liberal Democratic Social gathering and the Unification Church “stays a significant issue.”
Particularly, he identified that the church has embedded itself in Japanese society in numerous methods, together with coming into the political area beneath the identify of the Worldwide Federation for Victory over Communism (IFVC), a conservative political group that was established by Moon Solar Myung, the guru of the Unification Church, in each Seoul and Tokyo in 1968.
“Most likely a lot of the LDP’s right-wing lawmakers are topic to the affect of the Unification Church now,” Suganuma stated.
Suganuma identified that former Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke, Abe’s grandfather, collaborated with Moon in founding the IFVC in Japan.
He defined the background behind this collaboration. Within the Nineteen Sixties and ‘70s, there have been a collection of large protests by college students and employees all through Japan towards the Japan-U.S. Safety Treaty, which permits the US to keep up army bases on Japanese soil. On the time, right-wing politicians equivalent to Kishi and Fukuda Takeo, one other former prime minister, and big-shot right-wing figures together with Sasakawa Ryoichi and Kodama Yoshio, have been all afraid of a “communist revolution” in revolution. They sought to confront communism in collaboration with Moon’s IFVC, that means the church entered the Japanese conservatives’ political tent based mostly on the ideology of anti-communism.
An FBI report printed in 1975 identified Kishi and Sasakawa have been two heads of the Japanese department of the IFVC.
Additionally it is well-known that when the Unification Church entered Japan in 1959, its headquarters was proper subsequent to Kishi’s home in Nanpeidaicho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo. It was licensed as a spiritual company in 1964.
Suganuma stated that the IFVC, which had been advocating the overthrow of communism in the course of the Chilly Conflict, is now working to battle tyrannical international locations equivalent to China, Russia, and North Korea. That is in response to the battle between democracy and autocracy that U.S. President Joe Biden has in thoughts with China and Russia.
Based on Suganuma, “What’s flawed with the Unification Church is the way it collects cash.”
He stated the Japanese department of the church is being requested to boost funds by the Korean headquarters. He defined that donations are sometimes coerced as obligatory atonement for Japan’s colonial rule on the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945. The church provides Japanese believers a sermon that “your descendants are struggling as a result of your ancestors have dedicated so many sins. That’s why it’s important to cancel the sin,” Suganuma stated.
In different phrases, Japanese believers are manipulated to consider they need to donate to the Unification Church to “atone for the crime of colonial rule dedicated by their ancestors,” Suganuma stated.
The Washington Submit reported on July 12 that regardless of the church’s roots in South Korea, it was Japan that historically supplied as a lot as 70 p.c of the church’s wealth, quoting historians who’ve studied the church.
Based on the Monetary Instances, the Unification Church’s enterprise pursuits “embrace ski, ocean and golf resorts, a building group, a protection firm, a chemical compounds group, an auto elements enterprise and a newspaper.”
“They create the collected cash [from Japan] to South Korea. After which South Korea brings that cash to the U.S.,” Suganuma stated, declaring that the Moon, the daddy of the Unification Church, additionally based the U.S. conservative newspaper Washington Instances. The paper has backed conservative conspiracy theories and helps U.S. right-wing politicians like former President Donald Trump.
“Within the U.S., the church even has the Washington Instances,” Suganuma stated. “It additionally has a lot clout over U.S. lawmakers in each legislative homes.”
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