The apparent motive given by the man accused of murdering Shinzo Abe has put the focus on the Unification church and its links to politicians.
Tetsuya Yamagami has confessed to killing the former Japanese prime minister during a campaign speech on Friday. He blamed the world religious movement, whose members are often known as the Moonies, for bankrupting his family and believed that Abe had defended his activities in Japan.
The Japanese branch of the church has confirmed that Yamagami’s mother is a member, but declined to comment on the suspect’s claims that he had made a “huge donation” more than 20 years ago that left the family struggling financially.
The branch’s president, Tomihiro Tanaka, told a news conference that Yamagami’s mother became a follower in the late 1990s, adding that the family had suffered financial ruin by 2002.
Tomihiro Tanaka, president of the Japanese branch of the Unification Church, at a press conference in Tokyo on Monday. Photo: KYODO / Reuters
The official name of the organization is the Federation of Families for World Peace and Unification, although it is better known as the Church of Unification. It was founded in South Korea in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon, whose strict anti-communism would lead him to establish ties with conservative politicians around the world, including Japan.
Moon, who died in 2012, said he had had a vision at age 15 when Jesus told him to complete his unfulfilled mission to restore humanity to a state of “sinless” purity.
The early adherents of the church were effective recruiters, and the number of members increased from an initial group of 100 missionaries to about 10,000 in a few years.
Often described as a cult motivated by economic gain, the church became known for holding mass weddings in large sports stadiums – in which thousands of couples were meeting for the first time – and at one point claimed to have about 3 millions of followers worldwide.
But the church’s global membership, whose teachings include new interpretations of the Bible, has dropped drastically to several hundred thousand since its peak in the 1980s, according to some experts.
Its connection to Japan is inseparable from the instability of the postwar years, when conservative politicians tried to build alliances that they believed would prevent the country from embracing communism.
Among them was Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, who is said to have created an organization with ties to the church. It was Kishi’s decision to woo Moon and his followers in Japan that reportedly prompted Yamagami to target his grandson.
Yamagami reportedly told investigators he had fired a shot with a homemade pistol at a Unification church facility near his home the day before heading to Abe. Asahi Shimbun quoted residents as saying they had heard a loud bang in the early hours of July 7.
The Japanese chapter was founded in 1959, the penultimate year of Kishi’s three-year term as prime minister, when the church sent missionaries to Japan and the United States to establish links with influential politicians and business leaders.
Last September, Abe delivered a congratulatory address via a video link at an event hosted by an affiliate, the Universal Federation for Peace. Donald Trump is among other conservative politicians who have publicly joined the church.
Abe had been criticized for speaking at events organized by church affiliates. Last year, lawyers representing people who say they lost money because of the church filed a letter of protest after he delivered the video message. They also protested when Abe sent a telegram to a mass wedding in 2006.
Moon, who moved to the United States in the early 1970s, had long-standing ties to Japan, after studying engineering at a high school in Tokyo. He was charged with tax evasion in the U.S. in 1981 and served 11 months in prison.
In 2008, Moon passed control of the church to his young son, Hyung Jin Moon, who later formed a breakaway organization, the Shrine Church, after fighting with his mother, Hak Ja Han. He now controls the church of the Unification.
Police have not publicly identified the group Yamagami blamed on his family’s financial problems, and most Japanese media organizations refrained from naming him until Monday’s press conference.
With the Agence France-Presse