We appeal to eradicate religious kidnapping and forced conversion against believers of the Unification Church
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Voices of knowledgeable people

Position Statement on the Kidnapping and Confinement Case of Mr. Toru Goto


 The reason why deprogramming (forced conversion through kidnapping and confinement) against members of the Unification Church have not been eradicated despite its manifest criminality is because the Japanese society accepts the perpetrator’s ‘fake claims’ that it is a “family matter” and “shelter and persuasion”.

 The reason why the society accepts such ‘fake claims’ is greatly due to the media’s biased views. Although the Japanese media have known the existence of such cases, not one has been reported till this day because the “UC is a group with many social problems”. Principally, the social problems caused by a particular religious community and the act of forcing its adherents to convert their faith by kidnapping and confinement are two completely different issues. However, the media have confused the two without making sharp distinctions and have looked away from reality of recurrent cases of deprogramming.

 Such bias and self-righteousness have created a shortsighted picture of “UC = evil, any anti-UC acts = good”. As a result, the general atmosphere surrounding the UC is filled with exceeding hatred and bias that have made it impossible to carry out calm, “on merits” discussions and dialectical conversations.

 Furthermore, what is even more alarming is the fact that the biased views of the media and the general atmosphere that has been influenced by them have influenced in no small measures the decisions of the police, prosecutor’s office and even the judicial system, that are originally supposed to be the ‘lifeline’ for the victims of kidnapping and confinement. The Japanese police who have received written complaints for kidnapping and confinement have been reluctant in arresting the perpetrators or in building the case even if it was clear that there were criminal acts that violate the Penal Code. Indeed, a large amount of written complaints have been submitted to the police, but none of the perpetrators have been arrested up until this day. The partisan trend is even more obvious when it comes to the prosecutors’ office. Although some cases were sent to them, none of them have been indicted.

 While the law is strictly applied in cases where the UC or its adherents are treated as perpetrators, when it comes to cases where they are treated as victims, they turn a blind eye to the illegal acts of kidnapping and confinement because ‘it is inevitable for antisocial groups to be treated that way’. Such “double standard” that has been created by the media is going around not only within the police and the prosecutors but also within the judicial system. This is not an issue confined to a particular religious community called the UC. It includes a more fundamental and universal issue of establishing the freedom of belief and religion within a democratic society. If Japan was to mature as a democratic and law-abiding country, we must prevent the national sovereignty from covering up the locus of responsibility for kidnapping and confinement based on their arbitrary decisions and motives.

1. Tragic harms of deprogramming

 The harms of after effect and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused by widespread deprogramming (forced conversion through kidnapping and confinement) in Japan today are extremely serious. Those who converted from a specific religious community also suffer PTSD. A lady who converted from the UC as a result of a month of confinement 21 years ago still feels excessive heartbeats whenever she comes across things that remind her of kidnapping and confinement.

 The moment they are reminded of their experience of kidnapping and confinement, they get filled with anger and their facial expression suddenly changes. The pain recurs to them as flashback, and the unsolved resentment and agony rip their hearts apart. It is not unusual for them to fall into deep depression, lose their job, their family, and even their basis to organize their social life.

 There have also been many cases of suicide or suicide attempt. In June 1997, a female UC adherent (then 27 years old) hung herself to death in order to protect her faith in the bathroom of the apartment in Kyoto city where she was forcibly detained. A female adherent (then 26 years old) who was confined in an apartment in Tachikawa city from May to August in 1996 attested in court that she made attempts to cut her wrist three times.

Indeed, frequent occurrence of aftereffects, suicides, and suicide attempts are not the only problems. The act of forcibly kidnapping an adult on the road etc. by physically eliminating his/her resistance; the act of confining him/her in a room tightly locked in layers with particular type of fabricated locks for an extended period of time; the act of relentlessly forcing him/her to convert his/her faith against his/her will by sometimes even raising one’s voice while putting him/her in an inescapable situation … It is clear that there are strong illegality and criminality in the structure of deprogramming in itself in the first place. Deprogramming is obviously a crime.

 In the United States, there were also frequent occurrences of deprogramming by many professional deprogrammers in the 1970-80s. However, the US court acknowledged deprogramming as crime that violates freedom of religion and rights to physical freedom. Today, deprogramming has been completely eradicated as a result of the government’s strict law enforcement. Deprogramming was eradicated at rapid pace in Europe as well, and has all-but ended in the 1980s.

2. Escalation of kidnapping and confinement against UC adherents

 However, in a democratic nation of Japan, such vicious acts of deprogramming remain active with impunity instead of being eradicated.

 Deprogramming in Japan started from the late 1960s, mainly targeting the adherents of UC and Jehovah’s Witness. Deprogramming against adherents of Jehovah’s Witness has technically been eradicated because it was strictly ruled as illegal in civil suits made by the victims against the Christian ministers for instigating their families.

 What remains serious is the deprogramming against UC adherents. According to the UC, since 1966, there have been around 4,300 cases of kidnapping and confinement, and more than 1,300 adherents have barely managed to escape.

3. Deprogrammers insist “Shelter and Persuasion”

 There is a particular structure to deprogramming against UC adherents. While the actual crimes are executed by the victims’ parents and siblings and specific Christian ministers of Protestant denomination and professional deprogrammers who instigate them, indirect supports are provided by the anti-Unificationist academics, journalists, and lawyers.

 Deprogrammers describe deprogramming as “family matters” and insist that they are not “kidnapping” but “sheltering” the children who have been mind-controlled by the UC which is an anti-social group that promotes spiritual sales. Furthermore, since the victims stay with their parents, they say it is not “confinement” but “conversation and persuasion among parents and child” in an environment that is free from UC influence.

 As a religious journalist, I believe one’s freedom to propagate others to become members of a specific religious community should be admitted within a democratic society. At the same time, I also believe that one’s freedom to convince others to convert from a specific religious community should also be admitted.

 But in whichever cases, forced propagation and forced conversion executed against one’s will in confinement can never be admitted. Even if they reword it to “shelter” and pass it off as “persuasion”, it is obvious that what is actually being done is “kidnapping” and “confinement”.

 The common feature of deprogramming in Japan in specific is that the captors make rigorous and dirty concealment efforts in case of police interventions, such as preparing a set of tramp at the confinement place in order to give them the appearance of a family get-together.

 In a deprogramming case in the US, it was also insisted that what was done was not deprogramming because the victim’s parents were with the victim when he was at the motel and other confinement places. However, the US police and judicial authority defined requirement for deprogramming as, not if the victim was with his parents or not, but if the victim was able to leave the place with his own will, and arrested the parents for the crime of confinement.

4. Japanese mass media allow kidnapping and confinement

 Then why does the Japanese society accept such rewordings and “fake claims”, and why can’t they eradicate deprogramming from the society? This is because the society accepts such “fake claims” even though they realize that they are “fake claims”.

 This is greatly due to the biased view of the mass media, which has enlarged itself as the “forth power”. I wrote about the realities of deprogramming against UC members for a total of seven times in a series of articles in a monthly magazine called “The Tsukuru” (March – August issues in 2000) on the theme “The Unknown Battle Over ‘Forced Conversion’” and in an append article in the November issue of the same magazine.

 While I was gathering information for these articles, I asked for an interview with a man named Takashi Miyamura, who is known as a “deprogrammer”, pointing out that deprogramming is becoming a social issue (interview refused) but Mr. Miyamura replied nonchalantly that it does not appear in TVs and newspapers.

 It is obvious that the media is practicing biased coverage, and as far as I know, the only case in which a major media company reported about deprogramming, which started from the late 1960s, on a critical viewpoint insisting “what’s wrong is wrong” was a special report entitled “The Chain was Cut but the Faith Remained Uncut (May 14, 1984 issue of the ‘Asahi Shinbun’)” by Masahisa Takagi, an editor of the Asahi Shinbun (back then). Other than that, no kidnapping and confinement case have been taken notice of up to this day, including that of Mr. Toru Goto who was confined for more than 12 years and 5 months.

 In October 1999, in the civil affairs department of the Tottori district court, the case in which a group of about twenty thugs, including the victim’s parents instigated by a Christian minister, armed with an electric stun gun, iron chains and iron pipe, attacked a UC local church in the Tottori district in broad daylight and kidnapped a female adherent (then 31 years old) in June 1997 was ruled as illegal. I was covering the court, and on the judgment day, I recognized the presence of some newspaper reporters. They were present at the press conference held by the UC side as well. However, there were no mainstream media which reported this rare violent incident that occurred in the law-abiding and democratic nation of Japan.

5. The media fails to make distinctions between UC problems and the cases of kidnapping and confinement

 When they explain the reasons for the media giving a blind eye to the deprogramming cases, those involved in the media say with one accord what the deprogrammers say and repeat them like a parrot. “The UC is an anti-social cult that makes its adherents practice spiritual sales. ‘Shelter and persuasion’ is basically a ‘family matter’ and it is natural for parents and families of UC adherents to make actions in order to make their children convert from such illegal cult organization (City news reporter of the “Asahi Shinbun”).”

 However, the crime of deprogramming is consistently a matter of freedom of belief and religion. No matter how the UC position in the society is called into question for illegal sales practiced by its members, and regardless of them being ruled illegal at court, it is a completely different issue when it comes to forcing its members to convert their faith by kidnapping and confinement.

 In the June 2000 issue of the above-mentioned article serialized in “The Tsukuru”, I wrote:

 

 

 Today’s mass media are turning a blind eye to the recurrence of the supposedly impermissible crime of deprogramming by mixing up these two different issues without making any distinctions. I must denounce that they, as a result, have produced the effect of silent approval, approval, and even support to deprogramming.

 The mass media’s failure in value judgment has not only let deprogrammers like Mr. Shun Miyamura turn defiant and defend himself without embarrassment that the cases of deprogramming do “not appear in TVs and newspapers”, but has also served as major impediments in eliminating the crimes of deprogramming.

 In today’s information-driven society, media trends have extremely strong influence in arousing public opinion and in creating “social atmosphere”. We must realize that the media’s bias and self-righteousness have created a shortsighted picture of “UC = evil, any anti-UC acts = good” and that the general atmosphere surrounding the UC today is filled with exceeding hatred and bias that have made it impossible to carry out calm, “on merits” discussions and dialectical conversations.

6. The police support kidnapping and confinement

 What is alarming is the fact that the biased mass media and the general atmosphere influenced by them have influenced in no small measures the decisions of the police, prosecutor’s office and even judicial system, that are supposed to be the ‘lifeline’ for the victims of kidnapping and confinement.

 Article 20 of the Constitution of Japan guarantees freedom of religion to all of its citizens, and article 220 of the Penal Code defines unlawful confinement a crime.

 On April 24, 2000, while the civil suit filed by the victim of the above mentioned attack on UC local church in Tottori was on trial, Jin Hinokida, the then Representative of the LDP questioned Setsuo Tanaka, the then police minister regarding this case at the House of Representatives Committee on Audit and Oversight of Administration. Back then, Tanaka answered, “Even if they are families or relatives, they are equal under the law. We (the police) will rigorously respond to everyone.” He also said, “It is impermissible to violate the penalty law for a specific reason. In such cases, the police respond and will continue to respond according to law and evidence.”

 However, the reality is completely different. In the case of UC local church in Tottori, when a church official tried to submit a criminal complaint to the Tottori police station, the police officer refused to receive it, saying, “We are busy. Don’t bring such thing to us.” As a result, no investigation was done, and the female victim was forced to go through cruel confinement for almost 15 months.

 Furthermore, according to a statement made by a male adherent who was confined in an apartment in Ueno, Tokyo in November 1992, when police officers came to the confinement place from the metropolitan police department, he pleaded them that he was confined. However, the officer who called himself the chief of criminal investigation told the victim, “Don’t bother us with UC issues. They are family matters. Don’t trouble your parents,” and left the apartment.

 Such cases are too numerous to mention. As for a female adherent who was confined in an apartment in Tokyo in November 1998, although she managed to escape and called the police to ask them for help, to the contrary, she was unlawfully arrested at the Fukagawa Police Station in Tokyo. Moreover, she was restrained in a police official car and after being taken to the entrance of the express highway, she was handed over to her parents who happened to be her captors.

 As far as I know, the only case where the police broke in on confinement act by the victim’s parents was the case where a female adherent of the Jehovah’s Witness was confined in the Hyogo prefecture in August 1998. The police officer who received the report came for a rescue and made the father release his daughter. Also, during an interview in the Sayo Police Station in Hyogo, the officer in charge admonished the father, “Sir, even if you are her father, it is a crime to take her away against her will.”

 However, after a year, the same female adherent of the Jehovah’s Witness was kidnapped, this time, to one’s surprise, right in front of the police booth in front of the Takaoka Station in Toyama. Her friend at work who happened to be with her at the time mentioned in her statement, “There was a police officer at the police booth right in front of the kidnapping site, but he stood there with his arms crossed and did not even try to help.” As for kidnapping cases of UC adherents, there are also several cases where it seems like the victims’ parents have submitted a “shelter plan” to the police and received silent approval before executing it.

7. No arrestees among perpetrators of kidnapping and confinement

 Silent approval means no investigation. As can be seen from how the police reacted toward the case of UC local church in Tottori, despite the fact of criminal acts in violation of the Penal Code, Japanese police who received complaints from the victims have been reluctant to arrest the perpetrators or to build the case. Indeed, although considerable numbers of complaints have been submitted to the police up to this day, none of the perpetrators have been arrested. As for the case of UC local church in Tottori, it was right after they were questioned by Councilor Jin Hinokida when the Tottori Police Station accepted the victim’s complaint and suddenly started to interview those who were involved, but they ended up not arresting anyone after all.

 Furthermore, nobody was arrested even in the case of Mr. Toru Goto, a UC adherent who was confined for more than 12 years and 5 months, although the local Ogikubo Police Station accepted the criminal suit against Mr. Goto’s family, the professional deprogrammers, and Christian ministers (suspected of the crimes of capture and confinement, capture or confinement causing death or injury, attempted compulsion, etc.).

 There are rarely any cases where papers were sent to the prosecutors as a result of police investigation. I cannot help being astounded when I think that this is the reality of the Japanese police whom its minister clearly stated at the Diet session that “(E)ven if they are families or relatives, they are equal under the law. We (the police) will rigorously respond to everyone.”

8. Nobody indicted by the public prosecutor’s office

 The biased trend of the prosecutors is even more obvious. When the plaintiff’s lawyer requested the five executors of the kidnapping and confinement case in Tottori to be arrested, the prosecutor of Tottori prosecutor’s office who was in charge of the case flatly stated, “We will never arrest such people (the victim’s family)”.

 Furthermore, despite its suspects claiming their responsibility for the crime, the Tottori prosecutor’s office made little progress in handling this case, and the decision made as a result of radical development right after the case was highlighted in the Diet was to dismiss (suspend) indictment for all five executors of crime. Although illegality of the crime was acknowledged by the prosecutors, the process of the case and the prosecutor’s decision to drop the case make me wonder if the Tottori prosecutor’s office handled this case with fairness.

 In the above mentioned case of Mr. Toru Goto who was confined for more than 12 years and 5 months, the Ogikubo Police Station was slow in investigating the case, and after the papers were finally sent to the Tokyo prosecutor’s office in February 2009, the prosecutors decided, again, to dismiss the case (insufficient evidence) and this time, they did not even acknowledge illegality of the confinement executors.

Despite the large amount of criminal complaints, none of the persecutors have been arrested. Even in cases where papers were barely sent to the prosecutor’s office, none of them have been indicted. This is the reality of the police and prosecutors that respond to crimes of deprogramming in Japan.

9. The “double standard” of the court

 While they strictly apply the law in cases where the UC or its adherents are treated as perpetrators, when it comes to cases where they are treated as victims, they turn a blind eye to the illegal acts of kidnapping and confinement because ‘it is inevitable for antisocial groups to be treated that way’. Such “double standard” created by the media is going around not only within the police and the prosecutors but also within the judicial system.

 I experienced a good example of such “double standard” myself. In August 2000, I was brought before the civil court by Prof. Sadao Asami, former professor of the Tohoku Gakuen University, for defaming him by four definitions included in the above mentioned articles serialized in the monthly magazine “The Tsukuru”. My defeat was finalized when my final appeal was turned down in June 2003, but I think this was a politically motivated trial which already had its conclusion in the first place based on the above mentioned “double standard”.

 The decision issued by the court was unbelievable. For example, as for public interest of the articles, they acknowledged head on that “Murou serialized this case in order to present his perception to the society and to sound a warning against excessive forced conversion in this social situation today where excessive forced conversion by family members of adherents of UC and other religious communities are raising social concerns, and we acknowledge his sincere attitude in this purpose alone (Hon. Kenichi Takada, Presiding Judge, Tokyo District Court)” but the presiding judge of the Tokyo High Court, Hon. Tomonori Sagara stated, “The conflict relationship between adherents of religious communities such as the UC and their family members regarding conversion of the adherents encompasses serious issues concerning human essence called faith, and since it can be predicted from the nature of this case that there are various differences in opinions and positions, it requires special discretion,” and rendered my defeat by pointing out that I lacked discretion.

 However, what is questioned here is whether or not it is a crime for UC adherents’ family members, Christian ministers and deprogrammers to kidnap and confine the adherents and force them to convert their faith against their will. Such decision should be made purely on the basis of the component of the crime, and does not and should not involve ambiguous considerations such as the ‘various differences in opinions and positions that can be predicted due to the nature of this case’.

 Hon. Sagara assured that “(T)he conflict relationship between adherents of religious communities such as the UC and their family members regarding conversion of the adherents encompasses serious issues concerning human essence called faith” in light of the Japanese Constitution that guarantees the freedom of religion merely to weasel his way out of making responsible legal judgments. Moreover, he did not describe what the “serious issues concerning human essence” were in the first place.

 Would he represent the same perception to kidnapping and confinement cases of adherents of religious communities other than the UC? “The conflict relationship between adherents of religious communities such as the UC and their family members regarding conversion of the adherents encompasses serious issues concerning human essence called faith, and since it can be predicted from the nature of this case that there are various differences in opinions and positions, it requires special discretion.” The ambiguous ‘excuse’ made by the presiding judge has given clear evidence that the “double standard” surely exists in the Japanese judicial system.

 This is not an issue confined to a specific religious community called the UC. It is more than about protection of minority rights. It involves a more fundamental and universal issue of establishing the freedom of belief and religion within a democratic society. If we are to maturate Japan as a democratic and a law-abiding country, we must prevent the national sovereignty from covering up the locus of responsibility for kidnapping and confinement based on their arbitrary decisions and motives. What is desperately required today is for this issue of kidnapping and confinement to be treated with justice by genuine public opinion.

Tadashi Murou Religious Journalist

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