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Japan’s authorities mentioned Thursday it might ask a courtroom to revoke the authorized standing of the Unification Church over a 12 months after former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s assassination raised questions concerning the group’s fundraising and recruitment techniques.
Schooling Minister Moriyama Masahito mentioned the ministry proposed looking for the revocation after interviewing greater than 170 folks allegedly harmed by the fundraising techniques and different issues. The church failed to answer dozens of questions in the course of the seven inquiries, he mentioned.
If its authorized standing is stripped, the church would lose its tax exemption privilege as a spiritual group however can nonetheless function.
A long time of cozy ties between the South Korea-based church and Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic Social gathering had been revealed within the investigation of Abe’s 2022 assassination and have triggered public outrage. The person accused of capturing Abe at a marketing campaign occasion allegedly informed police he was motivated by the previous prime minister’s hyperlinks to the church, which had bankrupted his household on account of his mom’s extreme donations.
Prime Minister Kishida Fumio mentioned the federal government’s resolution was made rigorously based mostly on info and was not political, denying hypothesis it was meant to shore up dwindling public help.
The Japan department of the church, which formally calls itself the Household Federation for World Peace and Unification, condemned the choice.
“It’s our deepest remorse that the Japanese authorities made the intense resolution based mostly on distorted data supplied by a leftist legal professionals’ group shaped for the aim of destroying our group,” the church mentioned in a press release. “It will likely be a stain in Japan’s Constitutional historical past.”
The Unification Church based by Solar Myung Moon obtained authorized standing as a spiritual group in Japan in 1968 amid an anti-communist motion supported by Abe’s grandfather, former Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke.
The church has confronted lots of of civil lawsuits and acknowledged extreme donations however says the issue has been mitigated for greater than a decade. It additionally has pledged additional reforms.
For many years, the church has tried to steer its followers’ decision-making in ways in which weren’t at all times of their greatest curiosity, utilizing manipulative techniques, making them purchase costly items and donate past their monetary capacity, additionally affecting the lives of their households, Moriyama mentioned.
The systematic fundraising techniques prompted concern and confusion and critically deviated from the legislation on spiritual teams, by which the aim of the church buildings’ authorized standing is to provide folks peace of thoughts, he mentioned.
“The actions are wrongful conducts underneath the Civil Code and their damages are immense,” Moriyama mentioned.
The Company for Cultural Affairs discovered 32 circumstances of civil lawsuits acknowledging damages totaling 2.2 billion yen ($14.7 million) for 169 folks, whereas the quantity of settlements reached in or exterior courtroom totaled 20.4 billion yen ($137 million) and concerned 1,550 folks, Moriyama mentioned.
Moriyama mentioned the ministry will submit its request with the Tokyo District Courtroom as early as Friday for a revocation order. The method includes hearings from either side and would take some time.
Japan has in place hurdles for restraining spiritual actions on account of classes from the prewar and wartime oppression of freedom of faith and thought.
For the reason that Seventies, the church has been accused of devious enterprise and recruitment techniques, together with brainwashing members into making enormous donations to Moon and ruining their funds. 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.
If the courtroom grants the order, the Unification Church can be the primary to lose its authorized standing underneath a civil code violation.
Two earlier circumstances concerned legal expenses – the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, which carried out a sarin nerve fuel assault on the Tokyo subway, and the Myokakuji group, whose executives had been convicted of fraud.
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