Japan Press Weekly

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2022 July 27 - August 2 [POLITICS]

Lawyer asks for Diet efforts to reveal Moonies-related damages

The Japanese Communist Party Dietmembers' Group on July 26 held the second meeting of its task force team to reveal the former "Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity" (known as the Unification Church or Moonies) political maneuvers, inviting lawyer Kito Masaki, an expert in the Moonies' lawless acts.

Lawyer Kito of the "National Lawyers Network against Spiritual Sales" requested that the Diet properly investigate into the issue of damages caused by spiritual sales.

JCP Secretariat Head Koike Akira who heads the team responded, "Cross-party efforts are necessary to help victims of cult groups. An investigative body in the Diet is also necessary. We will act in cooperation with other political parties to address the issue."

Kito said, "Happy World, a sales subsidiary of the former Unification Church, declared its withdrawal from spiritual sales in 1987. However, investigations by the police then stopped for some reason. Only five years after that, Moon Sun-Myung entered Japan. Since 2007, the police had accused the Moonies of unethical spiritual sales, but it again stopped cracking down on their crimes after they declared compliance with relevant laws in 2009. After that, the change of their name was approved."

Kito reported that the lawyers network received 28,236 Moonies-related consultations between 1987 and 2021 and the amount of damage caused by the Moonies reached about 118.1 billion yen. Adding the data until 2018 tallied by the Consumer Affairs Office, consultations totaled 34,537 with 123.7 billion yen in damages, according to Kito.

Kito pointed out that attention should be paid to the high number of consultations when it comes to the assassination of former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. He said, "The 34,537 consultations mean that there must be many more victims, including family members and relatives. A lack of measures to assist the victims emotionally and financially may have led to the shooting incident."