[ad_1]
The Unification church is going through widespread scrutiny after being linked to the assassination of Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe.
The person arrested for killing Abe claimed to have focused the politician for allegedly championing the Japanese department of the worldwide non secular motion, whose members are generally often known as Moonies.
The suspect’s claims have “forged a highlight” on the controversial church and “its ties to politicians”, mentioned The Guardian’s Tokyo correspondent Justin McCurry.
Who’re the ‘Moonies’?
Formally titled the Household Federation for World Peace and Unification, the Unification Church was based in South Korea in 1954 by excommunicated Presbyterian minister Solar Myung Moon, a “self-declared messiah and ardent anti-communist” who “additionally ran a enterprise empire”, mentioned Deutsche Welle (DW).
- SEE MORE Blasphemy in Nigeria: a demise sentence
- SEE MORE Coronavirus: what’s the Shincheonji Church of Jesus?
- SEE MORE Shinzo Abe capturing: how widespread is gun crime in Japan?
Moon, who died in 2012, claimed to have had a imaginative and prescient on the age of 15 through which he was charged by God with finishing Jesus Christ’s unfinished mission to revive humanity to a state of “sinless” purity.
After establishing his personal church to show new interpretations of the Bible, Moon’s “strident anti-communism would lead him to construct ties with conservative politicians around the globe”, mentioned The Guardian’s McCurry. And the full variety of his followers “soared from an preliminary group of 100 missionaries to round 10,000 in a couple of years”.
Membership of the Unification Church is believed to have peaked at as much as three million within the Nineteen Eighties.
“Typically described as a cult motivated by monetary acquire, the church grew to become recognized for conducting mass weddings in enormous sports activities stadiums – involving hundreds of {couples} who have been assembly for the primary time,” McCurry continued.
In Japan, the church “has attracted celebrities in addition to the eye of politicians who search to courtroom its affect”, mentioned DW.
However membership has fallen in recent times, amid allegations about followers being pressured into giving massive donations that pressured some out of business.
A spokesperson for the church mentioned that present membership stood at round 300,000 followers in Japan and as much as 200,000 in South Korea.
Why is the Unification Church controversial?
The church “brought about severe harm to many voters in Japan, household breakdown and destruction of lives”, based on The Nationwide Community of Attorneys Towards Non secular Gross sales, which represents individuals pressured to make donations or to buy so-called “religious items” from non secular teams.
Damages being sought from the Unification Church by individuals represented by the community complete greater than ¥123bn (£760m) over the previous 30 years. “In a single case, a single household donated ¥2bn to the group,” the Monetary Occasions (FT) reported.
Tomihiro Tanaka, head of the church’s Japan department, instructed a information convention in Tokyo this week that “the quantity of donations is as much as every particular person”.
The group has acknowledged previous scandals associated to donations however has “denied having any such bother since 2009, when its head on the time acknowledged the previous issues and pledged to adjust to the related legal guidelines”, The Japan Occasions reported.
What’s the hyperlink to Abe?
“For many years, shut ties between the Moonies and highly effective figures within the governing Liberal Democratic Occasion (LDP) have been a little-discussed open secret in Japanese politics,” based on the FT.
The Japan chapter was based in 1959, when Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, was prime minister. Abe and his late grandfather “have been publicly often known as supporters of the church”, mentioned the paper.
“It’s unsure whether or not Abe’s grandfather really invited the group to Japan,” mentioned The Japan Occasions.
However Jeffrey J. Corridor, an skilled on nationalist activism at Kanda College of Worldwide Research, instructed the FT that the non secular group “has been one of many bases of the LDP’s campaigns since that point within the Chilly Warfare when the church was a dependable ally in opposition to communism”.
The church has denied offering monetary donations to the LDP. However Corridor argued that the group had benefitted from “having non secular teams that may present a really dependable group of voters who will certainly prove on election day” and “vote on your social gathering” and that may “present volunteers on your marketing campaign”.
The extent of Abe’s connections with the Moonies is “not clear”, mentioned The Occasions’ Tokyo-based Asia editor Richard Lloyd Parry. The Japanese Communist Occasion’s newspaper, Akahata, has beforehand reported that he despatched congratulatory messages and gave on-line speeches at ceremonies held by a entrance organisation for the church.
Final September, Abe appeared at an occasion organised by the widow of the church’s founder Moon that “additionally featured former US president Donald Trump as a keynote speaker”, the FT reported.
And the hyperlink to Abe’s alleged killer?
Tetsuya Yamagami is accused of capturing Abe with a do-it-yourself gun as the previous PM was giving a marketing campaign speech within the western metropolis of Nara on Friday. Police sources mentioned that the 41-year-old suspect was “trying to strike a blow in opposition to a non secular organisation to which his mom gave away the household’s belongings after the demise of her husband, leading to chapter and the impoverishment of her household”, The Occasions’ Lloyd Parry reported.
In keeping with Japanese media stories, Yamagami instructed police that “as my mom is a follower of [the church], and was declared bankrupt after donating massive sum of money, I assumed I needed to punish them with out fail”.
He reportedly mentioned that “I assumed Abe had a reference to it, so I carried out the capturing”.
The church’s Japan department boss Tanaka confirmed that Yamagami’s mom had been a member because the late Nineties however denied that she was pressured to make the donations.
Tanaka additionally mentioned the Abe had by no means been a member however added that the late PM had been concerned with a “friendship group” affiliated with the group.
No matter Abe’s hyperlinks, if Yamagami’s reported motive for the killing is confirmed,“the nation’s most devastating political assassination because the Second World Warfare was pushed by nothing extra vital than a household squabble about faith”, mentioned Lloyd Parry.
[ad_2]
Source link