TOKYO — Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is an unlikely target, and his assassination on July 8 was a strange and shocking fate for the country’s longest-serving prime minister and a well-known global diplomat.
The killings have focused public attention on the religious movement that the killer appears to be the target of hatred — and his decades-old ties to Japan’s ruling party and leaders.
The original target was reportedly Hak Ja Han Moon, head of the Unification Church and the widow of its founder, Reverend Sun Myung Moon. The self-proclaimed messiah and “true father” of his followers, Moon founded the Unification Church in South Korea in 1954.
Japanese media reported that the suspected killer, Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, told police he had a long-standing grudge against the church because his mother had donated more than $700,000 to it, bankrupting the family.
He allegedly had plans to target church members, including the chief, but shifted his focus to Abe after seeing a video message Abe made at a virtual church-related event last September.
Abe is not a member of the church. But like other Japanese politicians, he has appeared at church-related events, including last September, where former President Donald Trump also spoke.
Renewed scrutiny on the church’s role in Japan
The church immediately distanced itself from the murder. Tomihiro Tanaka, president of its Japan branch, officially known as the Federation of Families for World Peace and Unity, told a press conference that Yamagami was not a member of the church, but his mother.
“Regarding the motives of the suspect Yamagami’s crime, and the issue of donations reported by the media,” said Tanaka, “we would like to refrain from discussing it, as this case is currently under police investigation. On the same subject : Netflix Greenlights Yuji Sakamoto’s Japanese Rom-Com ‘In Love and Deep Water’.”
On Wednesday, Yamagami’s mother told investigators she felt sorry for causing trouble for the church. “For him, the Unification Church is everything. This is life itself. He thinks nothing of his son,” another relative said.
The Unification Church has longstanding links to Japanese politics
Abe’s relationship with the church goes back generations, including his father Shintaro Abe, and his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi. On the same subject : THIS WEEK IN THE ARTS | Midfest, Third Thursday, Riley County Fair and more.
At the end of World War II, his grandfather was imprisoned as a suspected war criminal. In prison, Kishi contacted other right-wing nationalists, including businessman and politician Ryoichi Sasakawa.
When Reverend Moon formed an anti-communist group in South Korea in 1968, he appointed Sasakawa as honorary chairman of its branch in Japan — whose headquarters are located on a plot of land next to Kishi’s residence.
“They founded the Federation for the Victory over Communism and Kishi supports it,” said Hiromi Shimada, a religious scholar at Tokyo Women’s Christian University. “And this situation laid the groundwork for Abe’s assassination.”
The church has long provided volunteers to help Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party at election time, Shimada said. And while LDP politicians have not been able to fully protect the church from lawsuits or criticism, they have turned a blind eye to the accusations against it, he said.
Japan’s Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi — who is Abe’s brother — said this week that members of the Unification Church had volunteered in previous election campaigns. And the head of the Japanese agency investigating security lapses in Abe’s killing told reporters he headed the executive committee for church-related events in 2018.
The church has faced a series of lawsuits and bad publicity
Despite the current explosion of public attention, the Unification Church, like other emerging religions, has lost its influence since its rise in popularity during Japan’s period of rapid economic growth in the 1960s. This may interest you : Netflix’s program to fix the payment crisis began in Asia.
“It was a time of urbanization, which produced a lot of new believers,” explains Shimada. “Now that period is over. Believers are getting older, and not many new ones are joining.”
The church’s anti-communist mission lost its relevance with the end of the Cold War, he said. A series of lawsuits against the church also damaged its popularity.
Former church members say they were conned
A former church member who goes by the pen name Fumiaki Tada, because he says the church targets his critics, claims that the church tricked him into joining as a student. He said their representatives hid their real identities for months, and said they brainwashed him and then scammed him out of the money.
“They instilled fear in you, telling you that you are sinful and corrupt, you will end up in hell, and your family will face the same fate,” he said.
In addition to the sins of Adam and Eve, said Tada, church members were taught about the sins of Japan’s colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945.
But the church also offers its followers a path to salvation.
“We were told we had to make up for it with money,” Tada said. “So for the South Korean church headquarters, the Japan branch is their wallet.”
Tada later became a church official in the city of Sendai. He said that the church’s headquarters in South Korea sent out fundraising quotas for branches, sub-branches and individual followers to meet. Followers who cannot meet the quota, he said, are often asked to borrow money to donate to the church.
Tada said his family eventually forced him to leave the church. His successful lawsuit against the church helped him overcome his ordeal and share his experiences with fellow plaintiffs.
But it was an opportunity he said the alleged killer of Abe never had.
“He is the son of a believer, and he has no one to talk to,” said Tada. “This is one of the reasons he committed the crime, and I feel sorry for it.”
Chie Kobayashi contributed to this report in Tokyo.
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