Japan’s First Degree Decision Against the Unification Church: No Winners, All Losers
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The dissolution of the Unification Church damages all religions, Japan, and its international image. All friends of religious liberty should protest a scandalous verdict.
March 25, 2025
In Japan, Tokyo District Court granted on March 25 the request of the government to dissolve the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (formerly known as the Unification Church) as a religious corporation. The Church has announced its intention to appeal.
There are no winners in this case, only losers.
Undoubtedly, the Unification Church lost the case. But what is the Unification Church? Media slander created for many Japanese an abstract and false image of an evil, anti-social entity, a stereotypical “cult.” Organizations, however, are made of real women and men, with their life stories, their joys, and their sorrows. The government and the Church’s opponents have found a few dozen apostate ex-members willing to complain about their donations to the Unification Church. But what about the tens of thousands who have donated to build places of worship and other buildings and are happy about their donations? They donated their hard-earned money and, if the decision is confirmed on appeal and at the Supreme Court, the properties their love and generosity built will be confiscated and given to a liquidator.
One of the lies spread about the case is that the Church will only lose its tax-exempt status. This is false. With the dissolution the Church will lose all its assets, including its buildings. Yes, believers will still be able to worship in private homes, but those who were glad to donate will see their money go to the government and even be used to support the militant opponents of the Church. If this is not legalized theft, I don’t know what it is.
There are other losers, however. As a leading Japanese Buddhist monk explained in an interview, all religions are among the losers as they are now at risk in Japan, including Buddhist temples. For decades, Japanese legislation on religious corporation has been interpreted by regarding only criminal decisions as grounds for dissolution of a religious corporation. Even then Prime Minister Kishida at first answered those claiming that the Unification Church should be dissolved that this was not possible, as the Church had not been found guilty in a single criminal case. Under media pressure, in turn fueled by militant anti-cult opponents of the Church, he quickly reversed his position and stated that having lost civil, as opposed to criminal, cases is enough to be dissolved.
Unfortunately, Japan’s Supreme Court confirmed this interpretation, which reverses decades of case law, confirming the sad truth that in Japan more often than not the judiciary follows the government and even the media.
But what are the civil cases the Unification Church lost? The government relied on thirty-two cases, referring to alleged psychological pressure used to persuade members either to donate money or to buy artifacts such as miniature pagodas and seals supposed to bring good luck at excessive prices (what opponents call “spiritual sales”). But there are three key points the court did not consider.
First, many of these cases referred to ex-members who had been kidnapped, confined, and deprogrammed, then persuaded to file suits with the threat of being confined again if they didn’t. Although Japan’s Supreme Court declared deprogramming illegal in 2015, it seems that by relying on these cases the government is condoning the obnoxious and criminal practice.
Second, when the campaign against the Unification Church was revamped by the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022, the practice of “spiritual sales,” by individual believers or companies belonging to believers (never by the Unification Church as such) was largely a thing of the past. In 2009, the Church issued a “declaration of compliance” with Japanese laws that had been passed to protect consumers, which in fact ended the so-called “spiritual sales.” 99.7% of the actions against the Unification Church refer to incidents that happened before the “declaration of compliance.” Out of the thirty-two civil cases mentioned in the dissolution action, only one refers to donations made after that declaration.
Third, there is the serious suspicion, raised even in the Japanese Parliament, that some testimonies of ex-believers allegedly regretting their donations were fabricated or manipulated by the government. Also, no mention was made of the civil cases that the Unification Church won. No wonder the Buddhist monk noted that, with these criteria and tactics, donations made to any religious organization may lead to its dissolution.
In addition to the Unification Church and all Japanese religious organizations, the main loser in the case is Japan. Scholars have noted that Japan has no tradition of religious liberty. The Constitutional reference and the laws protecting it were imposed on Japan by American occupiers after World War II. Yet, Japan managed to include in its laws and in the Constitution itself a poisonous provision that would allow the authorities to eradicate unpopular religions in the future. Article 12 of the Constitution states that rights are protected only insofar as they are used for “public welfare.” Article 81 of the Religious Corporation Act includes “harming public welfare” among the grounds for dissolving religious corporations.
In 1978, Japan signed the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). It includes a list of possible grounds for limiting freedom of religion or belief. Public welfare is not included. As noted by attorney Patricia Duval, the United Nations Human Rights Committee repeatedly asked Japan to eliminate the “public welfare” restrictions. Japan never complied, which means that religious organizations can be eradicated based on the vague notion of “public welfare,” which the government interpreted in the Unification Church case as including “social norms,” i.e., the opinions of the majority.
No, the United Nations will not send its blue helmet peacekeepers to Japan to enforce international law. It is not in its powers. However, this does not mean that blatantly violating the ICCPR and denying freedom of religion or belief to its citizens will come at no cost for Japan. What the international community can do is what is called by diplomats “naming and shaming.” In addition to the United Nations, the United States and their institutions watching international religious liberty may play a key role in this case. There are always political and economic costs associated with being identified as a country not friendly to human rights and religious liberty.
It seems that among many losers there is a winner in this case, the anti-cult lobby of the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales, which has requested the dissolution of the Unification Church for twenty years. This lobby is not only motivated by greed and the bonanza lawyers expect from receiving an important chunk of the Unification Church assets to finance their anti-cult campaigns and as honoraries for representing alleged victims. As demonstrated by investigative journalist Masumi Fukuda, the anti-cult Network was founded in 1987, during the Cold War. “Almost all of the lawyers in the Network were affiliated with the former Socialist Party and the Communist Party,” and they hated the Unification Church for its successful anti-Communist and pro-American campaigns.
The politically motivated Network is the main organization responsible for the slander and fake news spread against the Unification Church. While they now regard themselves as winners, they should reflect on history and the fate of those who persecuted religion. In the second century CE, while Christians were persecuted, Christian apologist Tertullian famously wrote “Semen est sanguis christianorum,” “the blood of the Christian is the seed” that will produce more and more determined Christians. I have met in Japan many dedicated and even heroic Unification Church members, who literally built a successful church with their blood, sweat, and tears, and who now stand firm in the face of persecution. History shows many examples of persecuted believers who win in the end. Religions tend to last longer than governments, regimes, or their opponents. History is fair, and often gives persecuted believers the last laugh.
There are no winners in this case. Or perhaps there is only one, Abe’s assassin Tetsuya Yamagami. As it has been noted, he may well be the most successful terrorist in history. Most terrorism acts backfire. If Yamagami really killed Abe to destroy the Unification Church, this one succeeded. But what kind of country is one where the aims of an assassin are honored and realized by the government and the courts?
Source: bitterwinter.org
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