Tokyo: The brutal killing of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe with a hand-held gun has shocked a country not accustomed to high-profile political violence.
But the weeks following the murder have seen another surprise as details emerge about an alleged murderer who was prosperous until his mother made huge donations to the controversial Unification Church, leaving him poor, neglected and outraged. filled.
Some Japanese have expressed sympathy for the 41-year-old suspect, especially those of similar age, who may feel the pangs of recognition associated with their own suffering during three decades of economic malaise and social upheaval.
There have been suggestions on social media that a care package should be sent to the suspect Tetsuya yamagamiDetention center to please him. And more than 7,000 people have signed a petition requesting prosecutors’ leniency for Yamagami, who told police he killed Abe, one of Japan’s most powerful and divisive politicians, because of an unnamed religious Her ties with the group were widely believed to be the Unification Church.
Experts say the case has also exposed the plight of thousands of other children of the church’s followers who have suffered abuse and neglect.
“If he hadn’t allegedly committed the crime, Mr. Yamagami would have deserved a lot of sympathy. Many others are also victims,” said Kimiyaki Nishida, a psychology professor at Risho University and an expert on cult studies. because of.
There have also been serious political implications for Japan’s governing party, which has maintained warm relations with the Church despite controversies and legal disputes.
Prime Minister fumio kishidaHis popularity has declined since the assassination, and he has reshuffled his cabinet to exclude members from the religious group. On Thursday, the head of the national police agency submitted his resignation to take responsibility for Abe’s murder.
Yamagami, who has been detained for a mental evaluation until the end of November, previously expressed hatred on social media for the Unification Church, which was founded in 1954 in South Korea and, since the 1980s, devious Faced with allegations of recruitment practices and brainwashing. Followers are making huge donations.
In a letter and tweets seen by The Associated Press believed to be his, Yamagami said that his family and life were destroyed by the church because of his mother’s huge donation. Police confirmed that a draft of Yamagami’s letter was found in a computer confiscated from his one-room apartment.
“After my mother joined the church (in the 1990s), my entire teenage years were gone, nearly 100 million yen ($735,000) wasted,” he wrote in the typed letter he had written the day before in western Japan. I sent it to a blogger. He allegedly killed Abe on July 8 during a campaign speech in Nara, western Japan. “It is no exaggeration to say that my experience during that time has distorted my whole life.”
Yamagami was four years old when his father, an executive at a company founded by the suspect’s grandfather, killed himself. After his mother joined the Unification Church, he began to make large donations that bankrupted the family and shattered Yamagami’s hopes of going to college. Later his brother committed suicide. After a three-year stint in the Navy, Yamagami was most recently a factory worker.
In media interviews, Yamagami’s uncle said that Yamagami’s mother donated 60 million yen ($440,000) within months of attending the church. When his father died in the late 1990s, he sold the company’s assets worth 40 million yen ($293,000), leaving the family bankrupt in 2002. The uncle said that he had to stop giving the Yamagami children money for food and school because the mother had given them. The church, not its children.
When Yamagami tried to kill herself in 2005, her mother did not return from a trip to South Korea, where the church was founded, her uncle said.
Yamagami’s mother reportedly told prosecutors she was sorry to upset the church over her son’s alleged crime. Her uncle said she was devastated but remained a follower of the church. Officials and the local bar association declined to comment. Repeated attempts to contact Yamagami, his mother, his uncle and his lawyers were unsuccessful.
Beginning in October 2019, Yamagami, who is said to have tweeted under the name “Silent Hill 333”, wrote about the church, his painful past, and political issues.
In December 2019, he tweeted that his grandfather blamed Yamagami’s mother for the family’s troubles and even tried to kill her. “The most disappointing thing is that my grandfather was right. But I wanted to believe my mother.”
One reason, in Yamagami’s case, is that she is a member of the Japanese media called the “lost generation” trapped in low-paying contract jobs. He graduated from high school in 1999 during the “employment ice age” that followed the explosion of the country’s 1980 bubble economy.
Despite being the world’s third-largest economy, Japan has endured three decades of economic turmoil and social inequality, and many of those who have grown up over the years remain unmarried and have lost their lives due to unstable jobs and feelings of isolation and unease. stuck together.
Some high-profile crimes in recent years, such as the 2008 mass murders in Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district and a deadly arson attack on Kyoto Animation in 2016, reportedly involved “lost generation” attackers with troubled family and work histories. Were.
Yamagami’s case has also shed light on the children of Unification Church followers. Experts say many are neglected, and little has helped as government and school officials oppose interference based on religious freedom.
“If our society had paid more attention to the problems in the past few decades, (Yamagami’s) attack could have been prevented,” said Mafumi Usui, a professor of social psychology and cult expert at Niigata Seiro University.
More than 55,000 people have joined the petition seeking legal protection for “second generation” followers, who they say were forced to join the church.
In a September 2021 video message, Abe praised the church’s work for peace in the Korean peninsula and its focus on family values. Psychology professor Nishida said his video appearance probably inspired Yamagami.
Yamagami reportedly told police that he had planned to kill Hak Ja Han Moon, the wife of the church’s founder, who has since led the church. Moon2012 death, but changed target because it was unlikely she would visit Japan during the pandemic.
“Although I feel bitter, Abe is not my true enemy. He is only one of the most influential sympathizers of the Unification Church,” Yamagami wrote in his letter. “I have already lost the mental space to think about the political connotations given or what would be the consequences of Abe’s death.”
The case drew attention to the relationship between the church, which immigrated to Japan in 1964, and the governing Liberal Democratic Party which has ruled Japan almost uninterruptedly since World War II.
A governing legislator, Shigeharu Aoyama, said last month that a party faction leader told him how church votes could help candidates who lack organizational support.
Tomihiro Tanaka, the head of the church’s Japan branch, denied “political interference” with any particular party, but said the church has developed closer ties with party lawmakers than others because of its anti-communist stance.
Members of the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales, which for decades have provided legal aid for people with financial disputes with the church, say they have received 34,000 complaints totaling more than 120 billion yen ($900 million). Money is lost.
Tanaka accused lawyers and the media of “harassing” the church’s followers.
A former follower in her 40s told a recent news conference that she and two sisters were forced to attend church when she was in high school when their mother became a follower.
After two failed marriages arranged by the church, she said she awoke from “mind-control” and returned to Japan in 2013.
As a second-generation victim “who had my life destroyed by the church, I can understand (Yamagami’s) pain, even though what she did was wrong,” she said.
But the weeks following the murder have seen another surprise as details emerge about an alleged murderer who was prosperous until his mother made huge donations to the controversial Unification Church, leaving him poor, neglected and outraged. filled.
Some Japanese have expressed sympathy for the 41-year-old suspect, especially those of similar age, who may feel the pangs of recognition associated with their own suffering during three decades of economic malaise and social upheaval.
There have been suggestions on social media that a care package should be sent to the suspect Tetsuya yamagamiDetention center to please him. And more than 7,000 people have signed a petition requesting prosecutors’ leniency for Yamagami, who told police he killed Abe, one of Japan’s most powerful and divisive politicians, because of an unnamed religious Her ties with the group were widely believed to be the Unification Church.
Experts say the case has also exposed the plight of thousands of other children of the church’s followers who have suffered abuse and neglect.
“If he hadn’t allegedly committed the crime, Mr. Yamagami would have deserved a lot of sympathy. Many others are also victims,” said Kimiyaki Nishida, a psychology professor at Risho University and an expert on cult studies. because of.
There have also been serious political implications for Japan’s governing party, which has maintained warm relations with the Church despite controversies and legal disputes.
Prime Minister fumio kishidaHis popularity has declined since the assassination, and he has reshuffled his cabinet to exclude members from the religious group. On Thursday, the head of the national police agency submitted his resignation to take responsibility for Abe’s murder.
Yamagami, who has been detained for a mental evaluation until the end of November, previously expressed hatred on social media for the Unification Church, which was founded in 1954 in South Korea and, since the 1980s, devious Faced with allegations of recruitment practices and brainwashing. Followers are making huge donations.
In a letter and tweets seen by The Associated Press believed to be his, Yamagami said that his family and life were destroyed by the church because of his mother’s huge donation. Police confirmed that a draft of Yamagami’s letter was found in a computer confiscated from his one-room apartment.
“After my mother joined the church (in the 1990s), my entire teenage years were gone, nearly 100 million yen ($735,000) wasted,” he wrote in the typed letter he had written the day before in western Japan. I sent it to a blogger. He allegedly killed Abe on July 8 during a campaign speech in Nara, western Japan. “It is no exaggeration to say that my experience during that time has distorted my whole life.”
Yamagami was four years old when his father, an executive at a company founded by the suspect’s grandfather, killed himself. After his mother joined the Unification Church, he began to make large donations that bankrupted the family and shattered Yamagami’s hopes of going to college. Later his brother committed suicide. After a three-year stint in the Navy, Yamagami was most recently a factory worker.
In media interviews, Yamagami’s uncle said that Yamagami’s mother donated 60 million yen ($440,000) within months of attending the church. When his father died in the late 1990s, he sold the company’s assets worth 40 million yen ($293,000), leaving the family bankrupt in 2002. The uncle said that he had to stop giving the Yamagami children money for food and school because the mother had given them. The church, not its children.
When Yamagami tried to kill herself in 2005, her mother did not return from a trip to South Korea, where the church was founded, her uncle said.
Yamagami’s mother reportedly told prosecutors she was sorry to upset the church over her son’s alleged crime. Her uncle said she was devastated but remained a follower of the church. Officials and the local bar association declined to comment. Repeated attempts to contact Yamagami, his mother, his uncle and his lawyers were unsuccessful.
Beginning in October 2019, Yamagami, who is said to have tweeted under the name “Silent Hill 333”, wrote about the church, his painful past, and political issues.
In December 2019, he tweeted that his grandfather blamed Yamagami’s mother for the family’s troubles and even tried to kill her. “The most disappointing thing is that my grandfather was right. But I wanted to believe my mother.”
One reason, in Yamagami’s case, is that she is a member of the Japanese media called the “lost generation” trapped in low-paying contract jobs. He graduated from high school in 1999 during the “employment ice age” that followed the explosion of the country’s 1980 bubble economy.
Despite being the world’s third-largest economy, Japan has endured three decades of economic turmoil and social inequality, and many of those who have grown up over the years remain unmarried and have lost their lives due to unstable jobs and feelings of isolation and unease. stuck together.
Some high-profile crimes in recent years, such as the 2008 mass murders in Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district and a deadly arson attack on Kyoto Animation in 2016, reportedly involved “lost generation” attackers with troubled family and work histories. Were.
Yamagami’s case has also shed light on the children of Unification Church followers. Experts say many are neglected, and little has helped as government and school officials oppose interference based on religious freedom.
“If our society had paid more attention to the problems in the past few decades, (Yamagami’s) attack could have been prevented,” said Mafumi Usui, a professor of social psychology and cult expert at Niigata Seiro University.
More than 55,000 people have joined the petition seeking legal protection for “second generation” followers, who they say were forced to join the church.
In a September 2021 video message, Abe praised the church’s work for peace in the Korean peninsula and its focus on family values. Psychology professor Nishida said his video appearance probably inspired Yamagami.
Yamagami reportedly told police that he had planned to kill Hak Ja Han Moon, the wife of the church’s founder, who has since led the church. Moon2012 death, but changed target because it was unlikely she would visit Japan during the pandemic.
“Although I feel bitter, Abe is not my true enemy. He is only one of the most influential sympathizers of the Unification Church,” Yamagami wrote in his letter. “I have already lost the mental space to think about the political connotations given or what would be the consequences of Abe’s death.”
The case drew attention to the relationship between the church, which immigrated to Japan in 1964, and the governing Liberal Democratic Party which has ruled Japan almost uninterruptedly since World War II.
A governing legislator, Shigeharu Aoyama, said last month that a party faction leader told him how church votes could help candidates who lack organizational support.
Tomihiro Tanaka, the head of the church’s Japan branch, denied “political interference” with any particular party, but said the church has developed closer ties with party lawmakers than others because of its anti-communist stance.
Members of the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales, which for decades have provided legal aid for people with financial disputes with the church, say they have received 34,000 complaints totaling more than 120 billion yen ($900 million). Money is lost.
Tanaka accused lawyers and the media of “harassing” the church’s followers.
A former follower in her 40s told a recent news conference that she and two sisters were forced to attend church when she was in high school when their mother became a follower.
After two failed marriages arranged by the church, she said she awoke from “mind-control” and returned to Japan in 2013.
As a second-generation victim “who had my life destroyed by the church, I can understand (Yamagami’s) pain, even though what she did was wrong,” she said.