Major Step Toward Disbandment

Fumio Kishida administration reportedly considers requesting a court order to disband a religious group, Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (renamed from Unification Church), as soon as mid-October. The government seems to have realized that the group’s “spiritual sales” and demanding expensive donation would be judged as illegal. Although Agency for Cultural Affairs consecutively questioned about the operations of the group, the federation failed in responding properly. The administration may take a major step forward to conclude the issue of assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. 

Tetsuya Yamagami, the suspect of the assassination last summer, has been confessing his motivation of killing Abe as a vengeance against FFWPU, which he thought had a close relationship with Abe. Yamagami had been convinced that his mother’s excessive donation to the religious group was the reason of the unhappiness of him and his families. Such examples have been reported by many families of the believers of FFWPU after the assassination happened.

 

Agency for Cultural Affairs has sent questions to FFWPU seven times from November last year to this July, asking how that religious group was operated including about donations or financial situation. As the questions were accumulated, FFWPU became not to fully answer the questions. The agency has decided that no further questions would be necessary and they would be able to verify the evil nature or organized and continuous activities of FFWPU, which are necessary for requesting a court order to disband. Against insufficient answering, the agency will request the court to pose penalty.

 

The Constitution of Japan guarantee freedom of religion to any religious group. Necessary religious activities cannot be disturbed. After considering the result of hearings to former devotees who reported the damage of excessive donation and court decisions in the past ordering compensation to the group, the agency supposed that the court order would needed beyond the constitutional demand for religious freedom.

 

According to the summary of National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales, total amount of damages from spiritual sales, like recommending to purchase vases, pictures or everything with irregularly high price, between 1987 and present is ¥123 billion. Although the group issued the declaration of compliance in 2009, which demanded the believers to abide by the laws, illegal activities still continued in their activities.

 

The founder of Unification Church, Sun-myung Moon, had a close relationship with former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, a grandfather of Shinzo Abe. Since then, UC maintained connection to mainly the conservative lawmakers in Liberal Democratic Party. After assassination of Abe, some lawmakers, including the Speaker of House of Representatives Hiroyuki Hosoda, were spotlighted as having friendly relationship with FFWPU, which caused decline of Kishida’s supporting rate. It can be an appropriate time for Kishida to take distance from the conservative part of his party.

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