The Unification Church has been accused of forcing members to make huge donations.
Tokyo:
Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Monday ordered a government investigation into the Unification Church following renewed scrutiny of the sect following the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe.
The group has been in the limelight because the man accused of killing Abe was reportedly motivated by outrage against the church, which has been accused of pressuring members to make huge donations.
Officially known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, the sect was founded in Korea by Sun Myung Moon and its members are sometimes referred to as “Moonies”.
The church has denied wrongdoing, but a parade of former members has gone public with criticism of its practices, and revelations about the organization’s ties with top politicians have helped tank Kishida’s approval ratings.
“Kishida instructed me to exercise my right to investigate the Unification Church,” Keiko Nagaoka, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, told reporters.
“I’ll start right away,” she said.
Kishida is expected to speak about the matter later on Monday, but local media said the investigation would investigate whether the church harmed the public welfare or acted with its status as a religious group. Is.
The investigation could lead to a dissolution order under the Religious Corporations Act, which would cause the church to lose its status as a tax-exempt religious organization, although it could still continue to operate.
According to local media, only two religious groups in Japan have received such an order, one of which was the Aum Shinrikyo cult that carried out the 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway.
The other is a group that deceived the members.
But the government is reportedly hesitant to issue such an order to the Unification Church due to concerns about religious freedom.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)