Masumi Fukuda on system of faith-breaking
New book reveals shocking Japanese system of abduction, confinement, faith-breaking and lawsuits, all orchestrated in order to get religious minority Family Federation dissolved
Tokyo, 20th December 2025 – Published as an article in the Japanese newspaper Sekai Nippo. Republished with permission. Translated from Japanese. Original article Part 1 – Part 2.
Is the Objective of the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales to Crush the Anti-Espionage Law?
Prepared by Knut Holdhus
Questioning a series of developments and media coverage surrounding the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (formerly the Unification Church), nonfiction writer Masumi Fukuda (福田 ますみ) pursued the truth behind them. Her book A Sacrifice to the State (Asuka Shinsha), which compiles and expands upon articles she serialized irregularly in the monthly magazine Hanada, has now been published. We spoke with Ms. Fukuda about her purpose in writing the book and her 1,200 days of reporting.
Abduction → Forced Renunciation → Lawsuits: Has this become a system?
A strong causal relationship with the dissolution order against the Family Federation
Interviewer: Special Editorial Committee Member Susumu Fujihashi (藤橋進)
‒ What was your objective in writing this book?
There are two central pillars to what I want to argue: abduction and confinement, and the true nature of the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales (全国霊感商法対策弁護士連絡会) ‒ also simply known as Zenkoku Benren (全国弁連).
I had known, from reading a bit of Our Unpleasant Neighbors by Kazuhiro Yonemoto (米本和広), that believers of the Family Federation were being abducted, confined, and subjected to forced renunciation of faith (deprogramming or faith-breaking) [See editor’s note below]. But I was shocked to learn that there were more than 4,300 victims. In the book I describe it as “unspeakably horrific”, and through my reporting I learned that people suffered terribly ‒ some sustained serious injuries while escaping, there were suicides, and even women who were raped. It was deeply shocking.
When I interviewed Toru Goto (後藤徹), who had been confined for 12 years and 5 months, I was even more astonished to hear from him that this had become a system. Believers who were abducted, confined, and forcibly made to renounce their faith would then become “victims” and sue the Family Federation. This became a recurring cycle. I felt this was something that had to be written about.
Then there is the true nature of Zenkoku Benren [National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales], which the mass media does not report at all. While wondering why they have so fiercely opposed the Family Federation for so long, I searched for materials at the Soichi Oya Library. There I came across articles in the May and July 1987 issues of the monthly magazine Zenbo titled “Political Activity Under the Guise of ‘Victim Relief’” and “The True Aim of ‘Crushing Spiritual Sales’ Is to ‘Crush the Anti-Espionage Law’.”
I asked Toru Goto (後藤徹) whether he knew that the real objective of Zenkoku Benren, which claims to rescue victims of spiritual and fraudulent sales, was actually to block the enactment of an anti-espionage law. He said he did. I was stunned, and at the same time I felt a profound and hopeless gap in information between believers and ordinary citizens like myself.
‒ Attorney Hiroshi Yamaguchi (山口広), who later became secretary-general of Zenkoku Benren, served as one of the legal representatives for the Socialist Party in a defamation lawsuit that the International Federation for Victory over Communism won against the party. This lawsuit arose after the Socialist Party’s newspaper, Shakai Shinpo, reported during the 1982 Levchenko Affair ‒ when a Soviet KGB spy defected ‒ that “Levchenko’s testimony was a conspiracy by the International Federation for Victory over Communism and the U.S. CIA.”
In an article dated 20th February, shortly after the February 1987 formation of the Lawyers’ Network for Victim Relief from Spiritual Sales (Higaibenren), the predecessor of Zenkoku Benren, Yamaguchi stated in Shakai Shinpo: “Ultimately, we want to pursue anti-social activities and demand that the Ministry of Education revoke religious corporation authorization.”
Astonishingly, less than one month after Higaibenren was established, he was already saying they would demand the revocation of the Unification Church’s status as a religious corporation. By any measure, this is not a purely victim-relief activity. It is an ideologically driven political struggle aimed at crushing forces that seek to enact an anti-espionage law. Ordinary people know nothing about this. That was another reason I very much wanted to write this book.
‒ It is also largely unknown that more than half of the former believers who are pursuing the church as “victims” were forcibly converted through illegal abduction and confinement.
As I wrote in the chapter “The Ministry of Education’s Suppression of Speech”, the linkage ‒ after a short time lag ‒ between abduction and confinement on the one hand and refund lawsuits on the other is immediately obvious if you look at the graph showing the relationship between the number of abduction victims and the number of plaintiffs.
If abduction and confinement had somehow been eradicated, those people would not have emerged. More than half of the “victims” interviewed by the Ministry of Education were people who had left the church after being abducted and confined. Ultimately, this means that abduction and confinement have a very deep causal relationship with the Tokyo District Court’s decision ordering dissolution.
‒ After FNN (the Fuji Television Network) reported this graph as a scoop, it is said that FNN executives were summoned to the Ministry of Education and reporters were temporarily barred from entering the ministry.
When FNN reported it, they did not properly explain the graph. So I think viewers probably did not really understand what it meant. Tetsuo Goda (合田哲雄), Deputy Commissioner of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, reportedly said, “Do not air the church’s one-sided claims!”
But this may have been the first time the four characters meaning “abduction and confinement” appeared in a standard news broadcast. That must have touched a nerve with Deputy Commissioner Goda.
‒ The Ministry of Education should, as an administrative body, be responsible for guaranteeing freedom of religion.
What proved to be the decisive move against the religious organization in the developments after the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (安倍晋三) was a series of statements by former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (岸田文雄). Before the incident, the Religious Affairs Division of the Ministry of Education (MEXT) functioned as a safeguard against Zenkoku Benren’s demands for a dissolution order, because it was an agency tasked with protecting freedom of religion.
However, as if “crossing the Rubicon”, the ministry shifted after Kishida’s remarks. From that point on, in line with the prime minister’s intentions, the Ministry of Education (MEXT) laid down the tracks and barreled ahead with the goal of dissolving the Family Federation.
‒ As the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) pushed forward on the premise of dissolving the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (formerly the Unification Church), it even went so far as to fabricate affidavits submitted to the Tokyo District Court.
In the end, that shows there was no evidence that would constitute legitimate grounds for dissolution. That is why they resorted to such actions.
‒ The claims of the so-called “victims”, including fabricated affidavits from former members, follow the logic and patterns created by the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales (commonly known as the National Lawyers Network).
To begin with, the National Lawyers Network is not a neutral organization, yet it has been brought into MEXT as an advisor. Even the fabricated affidavits follow the same writing patterns that the Network has used in documents it has produced in the past.
‒ Media organizations that routinely claim it is their mission to monitor government and power and to report in a neutral and fair manner have instead continued one-sided attacks on the Family Federation.
Regrettably, in the push to dissolve the Family Federation, the media, the state, and government ministries are all perfectly aligned in the same direction. When I wrote the chapter titled “MEXT’s Suppression of Speech”, I was reminded of GHQ’s press code, the “Press Code for Japan” (Nihon ni atauru shinbun junkoku). Although GHQ guaranteed freedom of speech and expression under the Japanese Constitution that it itself helped draft, it did not allow publication of anything inconvenient to GHQ.
As if an invisible press code now blankets society as a whole, the media has stopped even attempting neutral reporting on the Family Federation. This is because there is blatant speech suppression by MEXT, and free reporting on matters related to the Family Federation can no longer be expected.
‒ In such circumstances, the judiciary should be the last line of defense.
Before the first-instance ruling was issued, many legal experts believed that the likelihood of a dissolution order being granted was low. I am not a legal expert, but having reviewed court materials from numerous lawsuits involving the Family Federation, and having seen many cases that appeared to be unjust rulings, I consistently said there was no room for optimism. Even so, I have never seen a judgment as terrible as that one. It is little more than sophistry, hair-splitting, and nitpicking.
‒ Courts, which are supposed to render strict and impartial judgments, are piling inference upon inference.
Since the 2009 compliance declaration [See editor’s note 1 below], the number of “victims” has declined markedly. The decision itself acknowledges that “the number of damage claims in recent times has decreased considerably.” Nevertheless, it goes on to say that it is “assumed” that there are “a considerable number” of latent, hidden victims. A court that should be making judgments based on evidence is instead relying on speculation to issue its ruling. One cannot help but wonder what has become of the Japanese judiciary.
‒ Do Japanese people have a negative image of religion?
To begin with, the word “religion” does not leave a very positive impression on many Japanese people. I was the same way myself, and especially when it comes to new religious movements, people tend to see them as suspicious. It is not easy to dispel such impressions. Moreover, the Aum Shinrikyo incident was decisive. The impact that incident had on society was enormous, and it firmly entrenched an unfavorable image of religion.
It is said that people do not listen to the religious organization’s side because its members are “mind-controlled” [See editor’s note 2 below], but the concept of mind control is no longer used in the West, where it is regarded as pseudoscience.
For those opposed to the Family Federation, “mind control” [See editor’s note 2 below] has become a power word ‒ a convenient magic phrase. Believers are mind-controlled; therefore, it is acceptable to abduct and confine them. The courts believe this as well.
Attorney Nobuya Fukumoto (福本修也), counsel for the religious organization, has forcefully explained that mind control [See editor’s note 2 below] does not exist, so the term itself does not appear in the judgment. However, it has simply been replaced with different wording that conveys almost exactly the same idea. When it comes to religion, Japan has now completely fallen away from the standards of advanced Western nations.
Featured photo above: Born in Yokohama in 1956, Masumi Fukuda is a celebrated non-fiction writer. She is the author of Fabrication (winner of the 6th Shincho Document Award) and Russia, the Nation of Assassination. In 2024, her insightful work on religion earned her the American Wilbur Award. Her most recent exploration of social issues includes The True Nature of Political Correctness.
[Editor’s note: Coercive faith-breaking (“deprogramming”) in Japan refers to the practice of coercively attempting to separate individuals from their religious affiliations or beliefs, typically through intervention by family members, professional faith-breakers (deprogrammers) or organizations hostile to new religious movements (NRMs). This phenomenon often targets members of such movements, e.g. relatively large faiths like the Family Federation or Jehovah’s Witnesses, but also smaller groups like Happy Science (Kōfuku no Kagaku) and other newer religious movements.
However, also Soka Gakkai, a Buddhist-based lay organization with more than 8 million Japanese members, and affiliated with Nichiren Buddhism, has occasionally been subject to faith-breaking attempts.
The practice gained attention in the latter half of the 20th century, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. Parents or concerned family members often hired faith-breakers who taught them how to abduct and forcibly detain believers. Almost all such cases involved confining the individual believer and cutting him or her off from the religious community. During the confinement, the believer was subjected to intense questioning or indoctrination designed to break his or her faith. The aim was to “rescue” the person from what the family often had been tricked by faith-breakers or lawyers to regard as harmful influence from the religious organization.
Critics of forced de-conversion argue that it violates fundamental human rights, including freedom of thought, religion, and association. Reports of psychological trauma and accusations of unlawful detention have sparked debates over its ethical and legal implications. In response, some religious groups, particularly NRMs, have lobbied for greater protections against such practices.
Japanese courts have been inconsistent in addressing cases of coercive faith-breaking. While some verdicts have condemned the practice as illegal detention, others have been more lenient, citing family concerns about “mental health” or alleged “exploitation” as mitigating factors.]
[Editor’s note 1: The 2009 compliance declaration of the Unification Church of Japan (now the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification) was a formal commitment by the organization to reform its practices in response to longstanding public criticism and legal challenges.
The Unification Church in Japan had faced numerous allegations related to recruitment tactics and donation solicitation, termed “spiritual sales” (霊感商法) by a hostile network of activist lawyers who had declared the religious organization an enemy. These issues led to multiple lawsuits orchestrated by the activist lawyers and significant media backlash. This prompted the organization to take measures to restore its reputation and demonstrate compliance with legal and ethical standards.
The religious organization pledged to stop possibly unethical donation practices, including what the hostile network of lawyers claimed amounted to “pressuring members into making large financial contributions under spiritual pretexts.”
This was in response to accusations from the same activist lawyers that followers “were being manipulated into giving away substantial amounts of money or property.”
The Unification Church stated it would enhance internal oversight to ensure compliance with ethical and legal standards. Measures included better training for leaders and stricter guidelines for evangelization and solicitation of donations.
After this compliance declaration, there was a significant decrease in the number of lawsuits against the Unification Church – since 2015 called the Family Federation. The religious organization has used this as evidence that it has improved its practices and should not be subject to dissolution.]
[Editor’s note 2: In Japan, the “mind-control” myth has been a powerful tool used to stigmatize and suppress new religious movements (NRMs), particularly since the 1980s. The concept suggests that NRMs manipulate or “brainwash” their followers, depriving them of free will and rational thought. This narrative gained traction after the 1995 Aum Shinrikyō sarin gas attack, when public fear of dangerous cults intensified. Although Aum was an extreme and violent exception, the incident cast suspicion on all NRMs, allowing critics, media, and the government to label diverse groups as manipulative or psychologically coercive.
The “mind-control” myth serves multiple social and political functions. It simplifies complex questions of belief, making it easier to portray converts as victims rather than as individuals exercising spiritual agency. This framing justifies legal and social intervention, including the coercive “deprogramming” of believers – sometimes involving confinement or psychological pressure to force renunciation of faith. Lawyers, ex-member groups, and certain media outlets have used the idea of mind control to construct NRMs as threats to family stability and national order, reinforcing social conformity and Japan’s preference for established, non-controversial religions such as Buddhism and Shinto.
In recent years, the myth resurfaced following the 2022 assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose attacker cited resentment toward the Unification Church. A public outrage largely created by media reignited scrutiny of NRMs, and politicians and journalists revived “mind-control” rhetoric to explain the Church’s fundraising and recruitment practices. Critics argue that this framing discourages genuine religious tolerance and critical examination of Japan’s restrictive religious climate. Overall, the “mind-control” myth functions less as a scientific or psychological concept and more as a moral panic – a cultural weapon used to delegitimize minority faiths and to reaffirm mainstream social norms about religion, obedience, and the boundaries of acceptable belief.]