Tokyo, Japan, court strips Unification Church of legal recognition

A Japanese court has ordered that the Unification Church, formally the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, be stripped of its legal recognition. The Tokyo District Court issued an order of legal dissolution, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education told Agence France-Presse (AFP). The ruling was announced on a Tuesday. The church was founded in 1954 in South Korea by Sun Myung Moon.

The Japanese government had asked the courts in October 2023 to revoke the group’s status as a religious organization. The referral followed a government inquiry that began after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated in July 2022. According to the report, the group will lose its tax exemptions. Under Japanese law, however, the dissolution order would not prevent it from continuing its activities, which is why the term “legal dissolution” is used.

The man charged with Abe’s murder, Tetsuya Yamagami, is in pre-trial detention and could face the death penalty if convicted. The report says he was opposed to the church and that his mother had given it about 100 million yen, nearly one million euros at the time. The report also cites some estimates that Japanese members have given several hundred million euros over the decades.

The report states that Japan has long served as a major financial base for the church. It says the church encouraged its followers to atone for Japan’s occupation of Korea during the war and to buy various items as a way of obtaining forgiveness for their sins.

Source: Read the original report (translated from French)