Voices of Victims
Written Statement
Misa Takasu
Written Statement (summary)
Yokohama District Court
April 4th, 2003
Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture
Misa Takasu
1. Preface
First, I would like to state clearly that I have left the Unification Church and opposed to its activities, as I have serious doubts and concern about its operation concealing their real identity. On top of that, however, I cannot tolerate the methods of abduction and confinement to be imposed on whatever they may be. I hereby testify to have received personally tremendous mental damages through such acts.
2. Particulars of abduction
On 25th May 1995 (Thursday), I returned from the Fiji Islands as a member of the Women's Federation for World Peace (WFWP), an entity associated with the UC. From the airport, my parents took me to their home. Though usually I would immediately report to my work place, observing my parents' desire of staying with me, I stayed on at their home for three days. But they were not willing to listen to me about my Fiji experience, forging heavy atmosphere around.
On 29th May (Monday), I reported to my previous work place, then informed an employment agency of my availability. As I called that I am coming home, the parents picked me at the station and drove me to my sister's new apartment.
Coming closer to her apartment, my body started developing nettle rash all over as an ominous sign of rejection. As we settled in the room, they said, "Why don't we talk here with no interruption of phones or other nuisances?"
Looking around the room, I noticed the doors and windows were locked more tightly than before. "This is the confinement!". In panic I repeatedly pleaded, "I don't feel talking under such an environment. Please let me out!", to no avail.
3. Confinement and coerced renunciation
The place used for confinement was a ground-floor room of the apartment called Le Miere (Yayoidai, Izumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture). It consisted of one 6-tatami room, 4.5-tatami room and a dining kitchen with the toilet lock broken not to be locked from inside.
On the following day, under the heavy mental pressure, I destroyed the lock of the 6-tatamI felt dejected and apathetic to anything including my UC engagement, but parents repeatedly urged me to speak my side of stories. They had not asked anything while I was at home for four days! I was not motivated to respond to their sudden requests.
The directive by the WFWP's Oceania Project leader was that those members whose parents were known to be associated with the anti-UC ministers should be excluded from the project members. I would not go back to the Fuji Islands, even if I returned to the UC, I thought. Yet, at that moment I did not make up my mind to quit the UC. But having seen such fierce opposition from my parents, I thought if I could not persuade them, I should not go back to the church!
Ignorant of or ignoring my mind, they persisted for continuing our discussions, only to discourage me still further. Empty days ensued!
After about two weeks into the confinement, it occurred to me to commit suicide. Betrayed by my own parents, how should I keep living for their sake? In reality, however, after two weeks of immobile and feeble physical condition, I could not muster strength even to commit suicide, to my despair.
Around mid-August when I lost even a sense of time after the prolonged detention, Sakae Kurotori of the Totsuka Church, United Church of Christ in Japan, showed up. Though she introduced herself as a pastor and counselor, I got physiological rejection with freeze and terror.Not willing to appreciate my conditions at all, she said in tender voice to have jelly together. But facing my unresponsive behavior, she abruptly changed this, placing books and materials on the desk and speaking out scandalous abuses of the Unification Church.
I was in a state of mind where I would not want to touch upon any UC-related matters or particulars of my confinement, even with active UC members who might show up there. This pastor, claiming herself as a counselor, could not notice inside my mind! Kurotori turned out, only recently, not to have a qualification as pastor. She was merely a missionary.
4. Relocating the site of confinement
In one evening of early October, Kurotori and ex-UC member Nobuko Nakata who had come over a couple of times visited me. They said, "We are relocating, as this place is no longer effective!" In despair for still protracted confinement, I desperately resisted by sitting down on the floor. But I was forcibly pulled out of the apartment, dragged and pushed into the car, as my mother and Nakata held my one arm each. Father drove the car, while Kurotori sitting on the passenger seat and myself flanked by mother and Nakata on the rear seat. Another car was guiding ours.
We reached an apartment, where a waiting man, whose face was not visible, said, "Mr. Sato, thank you for the job well done!" The man was actually Pastor Yoshio Shimizu of the Ohta Hachiman Church, United Church of Christ in Japan, while 'Mr. Sato' used to be involved as the driver in the abduction of Rie Imari from her home to Gunma.
Late at the following night, Pastor Shimizu showed up, taking with him six ex-UC members. He talked about UC's problems to my deaf ears and indifferent attitude. He finally got angry, but I kept ignoring him. Rather, I felt weird as those ex-members nodded submissively to whatever Pastor Shimizu asserted. I will never become like them, I said to myself. He came over for the next three consecutive nights, but I kept indifferent. To my disgust, my parents looked so dependent on the pastor that they would not think for themselves.
Owing to the relocation shock, for 16 days I suffered from apathy, unable to swallow solid foods. People around me imagined that I was fasting as a UC faithful. Pastor Shimizu threw such words to me, "If worse comes to the worst, you shall not die by administering intravenous drips at a hospital". I would not have liberty even to die!
5. Decision to quit the UC
Since then, I began reading the anti-UC books piled up in the room. Those days, Japanese media frantically followed the Ohmu Shinrikyo, which I felt had organizational characters similar to the UC.
While in the UC, I was instructed: "The Divine Principle does not describe beyond 80 percent of the truth. If you read 100% truth and violate it, you would be liable for your failure, subjected to heavy punishments. Therefore, not writing everything is the very manifestation of forgiveness".
Thus, theories that were wrong would not become the cause of my renunciation of UC faith. But reading a book entitled "Horrors of Mind Control" and observing the Ohmu Shinrikyo incidents, I realized that I was also mind-controlled, however slightly.
What further pushed my decision of quitting the UC were a paper written by a UC member regarding its problems and his proposals for improvement as well as the fact that he was dismissed by the UC because of that paper. Reading the paper, I was overwhelmed by the high wall to overcome, hence my determination to leave the UC.
In mid-December we were obliged to vacate the apartment, as a new tenant was in the waiting. The next site of confinement was found in an apartment called Sunrise Ohta Room No. 306 in Gunma Prefecture.
6. Working on rescuing other confinement victims
I returned at first to my family home. But unwilling to live with the parents who would not understand my mind at all, I decided to live alone. Also through an employment agency, I got a job beginning from February 1996.
Based on my hardship during my life in confinement, I was so concerned about other people under detention that I visited Gunma half of the week until my job actually started. Even in February, I went over to Gunma on every Friday directly from the job place, returning back to the job from Gunma.
It was painful to see very arrogant attitude of Pastor Shimizu towards the UC members, as he urged their parents to pressure their children. The UC members could not open their hearts in such a closed and choky environment. I visited them to offer any help. However, as an ex-member who had offered my accommodation was to relocate to Totsuka, I had to stop going there after March.
Subsequently, I visited the Totsuka Church, where I emphasized to terminate the confinement method once and for all, referring to my own torments during the confinement in the parents' gathering that took place after every Sunday service.
I repeatedly pleaded with Kurotori directly about the sufferings in the confinement. But she claimed, "We could not notice your condition as your parents would not report much", "Your father was changed greatly. That (=my confinement) must be the custody for your father's sake.
When I challenged, "What about my own torments during the confinement?", she would shift the subject to parents-child problem, asserting "It was due to your parents-child relations that had not been good in the first place." I was also branded as 'a drop-out UC follower' and some parents shied away from me.
Though the confinement was supposed to be the last resort to set up an environment of discussion between parents and children, the parents' meetings mostly focused on 'how to confine' their children. After Takatsuka, Missionary Kurotori and Pastor Shimizu were sued in court in February 1999, the parents' association shifted their topic to 'how to win the court case'.
After contemplating on how to appeal to the society, since September 2000 I began uploading my experiences on a website, through which the network of concerned people has expanded.
7. Confinement-induced PTSD
Ignited by the shocking revelation of a girl's prolonged confinement in Niigata Prefecture, I began experiencing flashbacks of my own confinement experiences, causing insomnia and worsening panic disorder.
In September, coupled with a friction in my work place, I lost my weight by 10 percents and began visiting a psychosomatic medical clinic in October. Just hearing words like 'family' or 'parent' induced persistent vomiting, obliging me to take antidepressant drugs, tranquilizers and sleeping pills.
Towards the January end, I resigned the work to take some rest for a while. Alone, however, I could not get rid of anxieties. As I looked for anything I could do, I met the Yokohama Women's Forum which was supporting self-help groups. In February I attended the Addiction Seminar, which assembled those who were engaged in self-help activities nationwide. There, I met with an acquainted ex-UC member, who was involved in a alcoholics self-help group.
When I suggested "to set up a self-help group for the abducted and confined", she disclosed that her alcoholic dependency had stemmed from the abduction and confinement! She had left the UC four years earlier than me, but appealed to stop those methods of abduction and confinement, receiving little response. Thus, she had to deal with the problem as her personal case, causing the alcoholic dependency syndrome. She happened to meet me, right after she could discover its cause.
Likewise, I believe there must be many who are suffering from PTSD stemming from abduction and confinement. In my case, after seven long years, still scars and trauma from the abduction and confinement remain deep in my being. Nonetheless, I wish I could alleviate the sufferings of many people like me by disseminating the issue of abduction and confinement on the website.
(end)
