Waves of biased reporting by media in Japan after the Abe assassination in 2022 led to several suicides among the youth of religious minority
Tokyo, 15th August 2024 – Published as the 20th article in a series in the Japanese newspaper Sekai Nippo. Republished with permission. Translated from Japanese. Original article
Suicides due to biased reporting
by the Religious Freedom Investigative Team of the editorial department of Sekai Nippo
Prepared by Knut Holdhus
According to Nozomi Kojima (小嶌希晶) (28), a representative of the “Association to Protect the Human Rights of Second-Generation Believers”, several second-generation individuals have committed suicide since the media coverage of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (formerly the Unification Church) became too heated. Kojima points out, “Many second-generation individuals are being hurt without us even realizing it.”
Two years ago, Sayoko Okawa (pseudonym), a woman in her 60s living in Saitama Prefecture and a Family Federation believer, lost her eldest daughter, Megumi (pseudonym, 27 at the time), to suicide. Although no suicide note was left behind, Okawa believes that the intense media coverage of the religious organization was the cause. She says, “Criticism of the church probably sounded like slander against her parents, which must have been stressful for her. She was a gentle and sensitive child.”
Okawa regrets that due to her activities as a believer, caring for her ailing parents, and running the retail business of books and stationery inherited from her parents, she found it difficult to spend quality time with her family.
When Megumi was in middle school, she began to frequently skip school due to bullying and other issues. After visiting a psychiatric clinic, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. After obtaining her high school diploma, she worked in several jobs, including factory work and as a temporary employee. However, she faced interpersonal and work-related troubles, and in March 2022, she quit her job where she had been employed under a disability quota. Since then, she had been staying at home.
Nevertheless, her relationship with her mother was good, and within the family, they had the “closest relationship where they could talk about anything” (according to Sayoko). They often went to karaoke together. Although Megumi was not a church member, she would participate in church events and seminars when invited and had also visited facilities related to the Family Federation in South Korea.
However, after the shooting incident involving former Prime Minister Abe, things changed dramatically. As media criticism of the church increased on TV and the internet, her relationship with Megumi began to become strained.
One day, while Okawa was talking with a fellow believer near her home, Megumi suddenly slammed the door shut with a loud “bang!” Such behavior had never happened before, so Okawa was surprised. Megumi also once angrily asked, “How much debt do you have?” Okawa suspects that Megumi’s actions and words were influenced by the stories of former believers that were featured in the critical media reports.
On one occasion, Megumi did not return home late at night, and even by morning, she had not come back. Worried, Okawa visited Megumi’s friends and eventually, one of them showed her a message Megumi had sent via social media. The message contained words hinting at suicide, saying, “I’m just so tired.”
Okawa spent the entire morning searching for her daughter but couldn’t find any trace of her. Just as she was about to file a missing person report, she received news at work that Megumi’s body had been found. Okawa, looking down, says, “Even though we lived together, I couldn’t realize how much she had been hurt. I feel so useless and regretful because of that.”
In addition to the suicide hints, Megumi’s message contained an unfounded belief that her mother was trying to use her as a “cash cow”.
According to Okawa, when Megumi was still working, there were a few times when Okawa temporarily borrowed a small amount of money, a few thousand yen, from Megumi to save the time and hassle of going to the bank. She had also encouraged Megumi to find a new job after she quit her previous one. Okawa believes Megumi might have misunderstood these actions. Okawa expresses her frustration, saying, “The biased media coverage has caused me to lose both the bond with my daughter and her trust.”
Recently, Okawa has distanced herself somewhat from the local church due to interpersonal issues, but she remains outraged by the government’s request for a dissolution order, calling it “unjust”. She fears that if the dissolution order is finalized, even more people will suffer, just like Megumi did.
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Featured image above: Sayoko Okawa (not her real name) holds her late daughter’s smartphone, 22nd June 2024, Saitama Prefecture. Photo: Takahide Ishii (石 井 孝 秀 ) / Sekai Nippo.