November 19, 2020

Education Minister Hagiuda Koichi, Science and Technology Minister Inoue Shinji, and two other Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers in 2019 paid membership fees to the Moonies cult. Akahata learned this from the 2019 political fund reports released by the Tokyo election commission on November 17.

The cult in question is the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU), formerly known as the Unification Church. This organization is notorious for its illegal “spiritual sales” activities by which the cult group promotes a sense of fear by saying, “Your ancestors are suffering in the after world”, and tricks people into buying exorbitantly costly goods or making donations.

According to Akahata, an LDP branch headed by Hagiuda and an Inoue’s political fund management organization in December 2019 made the membership payment of 15,000 yen to the FFWPU, respectively.

A nationwide lawyers’ group working to support victims of “spiritual sales” by the aggressive sales tactics use by the Moonies in September 2019 submitted to all parliamentarians a letter calling on them to never participate in the FFWPU and its events or issue messages in solidarity to the cult.

Past related article:
> Wealthy women are targets for ‘spiritual sales’ by Moonies [March 20, 2010]