Analysis by Dr. Robert Kittel, Cheon Eui Won Chair and Senior Advisor for the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification of Asia Pacific Region, April 2025
Japan is a beautiful nation with kind-hearted, honest people. The international image of Japan, justly so, is stellar. They are peace-loving people who follow the rule of law and live by democratic norms. Japanese are gracious and polite, almost overly so (in a good way). Trains and people are very punctual. They have a culture that emphasizes truthfulness, loyalty, courage, and self-control associated with the Bushido code, or more broadly the samurai spirit.
However, a strange miscarriage of justice is being attempted largely behind closed doors. It’s actually a communist coup in broad daylight.
On March 25, 2025, the Tokyo District Court granted the request by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) to dissolve and dismantle the Unification Church (a.k.a. Family Federation for World Peace and Unification or the “church”).
In unprecedented legal maneuvering that violates statutes of the United Nations which Japan signed as well as its own established jurisprudence, the church is being stripped of its legal status, and—unless overturned or withdrawn—its assets and properties, including bank accounts, churches, schools, and possibly even cemeteries, will be confiscated and sold off by the government. The proceedings were full of irregularities and the outcome was draconian. (see BITTER WINTER).
More importantly, Japan’s image is being tarnished.
Leftist lawyers from the so-called “National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales” (NNLASS or “lawyers”) care little about Japan’s international identity or loss of face so important in the land of the rising sun. Their motivation, gleaned from the communist ideology and statements by key players in Japan, is to terminate the institution of the church, divide church families, and funnel Family Federation funds to themselves to fuel their leftist agenda.
These objectives, taken directly from the 1848 communist manifesto, are patently anti-Japanese and anti-religious. Karl Marx famously called religion “the opium of the people.” Less well-known, he also called for “the abolition of the family!” noting that “even the most radical [communists] flare up at this infamous proposal ” (Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels, “The Communist Manifesto,” p. 427).
The church has a long and successful history of opposing communism. Rev. Moon, the church’s founder, had been imprisoned in a communist labor camp in North Korea for two years and eight months. He nearly died. He was liberated when 16 UN-backed nations defended South Korea against an unprovoked military invasion from the North backed by Russia and China.
As part of his religious ministry, Rev. Moon developed the most powerful, cutting-edge critique of communism which methodically dissects and exposes the numerous falsities of this materialistic ideology. In 1968 he established the International Federation for Victory over Communism (IFVOC). In 1973, with Mrs. Moon by his side, Rev. Moon met former Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, the grandfather of Shinzo Abe. Moon and Kishi were allies in fighting communism and created a friendship that lasted generations.
Japan had become a “spy’s paradise” since espionage was not illegal. In 1978, Japanese IFVOC members gathered 30 million signatures to support anti-spying legislation. That initiative ultimately failed to pass, but in the same year, the Japan Communist Party (JCP) lost the Governor’s seat in Kyoto Prefecture which it had held for nearly three decades. The JCP Chairman at the time, Kenji Miyamoto, publicly declared a “holy war” to annihilate the IFVOC along with the Unification Church.
Since then, leftist lawyers have tried three times to have the church dissolved. Japanese courts rejected all three attempts. That is because Japanese law was clear: The church could be dissolved only based on criminal convictions and neither the church nor any of its leaders have ever been accused or convicted of any criminal offense. Criminal, not civil, law was the legal precedent for dissolution in Japan. This all changed on July 8, 2022, when Japan’s longest-serving prime minister and current member of its House of Representatives was gunned down on the streets of Nara, Japan.
The Unification Church, which had nothing to do with the murder, became the scapegoat of this terrible tragedy. The assassin, Tetsuya Yamagami, told police he had “a grudge” against the Unification Church because his mother had given it large donations in the early 2000s. Following civil litigation, the church agreed to return half of the mother’s donations, and Yamagami (never a member of the church) personally signed a legal document saying he released the church from any further claims.
This went largely unreported in the Japanese press. In the first months following Abe’s assassination, a relentless onslaught of more than 10,000 articles published in Japan’s print and electronic media attacked the church with nearly 95% being negative. With only one side of the story being told, public opinion turned against the church which became the de facto culprit.
As it stands, Abe’s assassination is a crime without a criminal. The real assassin is Tetsuya Yamagami. He made the gun and pulled the trigger that killed Abe and was apprehended on the scene. Nevertheless, it has been nearly three years and he has never seen a courtroom. Compare this to Ryūji Kimura who tried to assassinate Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on 15 April 2023, nine months after Abe was killed. In short order Kimura was tried, convicted, and handed a 10-year prison term. Having no criminal conviction in Abe’s assassination is oddly convenient for all parties pushing their false narratives. Meanwhile, the Unification Church stands wrongly accused in the court of public opinion and now in the Tokyo District Court.
With the truth hidden, NNLASS lawyers and Japan’s sensational media went into overdrive to heap public shock and blame on the church. This was a phenomenon stage-managed by the JCP in collusion with leftist mainstream media that tightly controlled their carefully scripted narrative. They had the support of Abe’s political foe, then-Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. However, one voice stood out, almost celebrating Abe’s demise. Japanese Communist Party Chairman Kazuo Shii boasted, “This time, we will go all the way until we get it right,” referring to their decades-old goal to destroy the church (Sunday Mainichi, November 6, 2022). This is their ultimate agenda.
Three days after the court decision, the lawyers held a press conference on March 28 and praised the judgment. The first lawyer to speak was Masaki Kitowhoplayed a game of smoke and mirrors.He cited the Religious Corporation Act in Japan and said the dissolution order simply removes the church’s religious corporation status and tax exemption. He emphasized the point saying “That is not the death penalty for the religious group, after the deprivation of religious corporation status. The insistence of the Unification Church about this point is a fabrication or exaggeration.”
However, the ruling from the Tokyo District Court said specifically, “when a dissolution order for a religious corporation becomes final and binding, liquidation procedures are carried out.” [emphasis added]
Trying to square himself with the court ruling, Kito nonchalantly contradicted himself and added, “… the dissolution order is not confiscation of assets, but simply a liquidation procedure.” If the dissolution only removes the legal status of the church, then why should its assets be liquidated? Removing religious status is done with a piece of paper from the court. Liquidators liquidate. These are not the same. In fact, NNLASS has even asked the court to expedite the liquidation process.
The lawyers are trying to downplay the draconian insolvency that will be imposed on the innocent church. Why? It is so blatantly obvious that even a layman would ask, ‘Why should the church that has no criminal record be dissolved?’ This question should pop into the mind of any casual Japanese observer since it is widely known that only two religious organizations in Japan have ever been dissolved. Both were based on criminal—not civil—convictions.
It took a 180-degree flip-flop to reinterpretJapanese laws to use civil misdemeanors to dissolve the church. This turnaround happened at night behind closed doors, was conducted in less than 24 hours, never subjected to legislative or judicial review, and applied retroactively—all with the sole purpose of dissolving the Unification Church. This is unprecedented in Japan and other developed democracies.
Worse still, in 1978 Japan voluntarily signed the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Article 18.3 allows legislative restriction on religious freedom “only” based on “prescribed laws” that “protect public safety, order, health, or morals… of others.” Public safety, by definition, includes: crime prevention, fire safety, emergency medical services, and disaster preparedness. The church, in its six decades of existence, has never impinged on any of these vital “public safety” responsibilities.
More to the point, the “prescribed law” in the UN Covenant would expressly preclude any new interpretations of legal norms not backed by established precedence, especially those imposed unilaterally and retroactively. To dissolve the church, Japanese courts needed to go beyond “prescribed law.” New interpretations of the law targeted only one religious group—the Unification Church.
This aberration of justice is the difference between prosecution and persecution. These days it is called lawfare and has been pointedly prohibited by the UN International Covenant signed by Japan. To dissolve the church, domestic laws are being unilaterally reinterpreted and given precedence over a signed international treaty, thereby putting Japan in a precarious position where it betrays its international obligations. This exonerating evidence was entirely ignored in the Japanese court’s judgment of March 25.
The Japanese Constitution was written in the post-World-War-II era and remains the oldest unamended constitution in the world. The Preamble reads, “We recognize that all peoples of the world have the right to live in peace, free from fear and want.” Does that include the 600,000 members of the Unification Church who have been publicly ostracized?
The 1946 document goes on to say, “We believe that no nation is responsible to itself alone, but that laws of political morality are universal; and that obedience to such laws is incumbent upon all nations who would sustain their own sovereignty and justify their sovereign relationship with other nations. We, the Japanese people, pledge our national honor to accomplish these high ideals and purposes with all our resources.” Japanese courts need to be reminded of their country’s unaltered and time-honored tradition.
Willing to tarnish Japan’s image in front of international audiences to achieve their communist agenda, Kito closed his comments at the March 28 press conference saying, “In this sense… a small number of overseas intellectuals are defending the Unification Church without knowing about Japan.” Here he is referring directly to the office of the President of the United States of America and his representative.
Rev. Paula White, the current Director of the White House Faith Office under President Donald Trump, released a video in December 2024 that shocked Japan. She connected the dots, emphasizing that Trump’s strong stance for religious freedom was a bedrock for democratic nations.
“Religious freedom is the foundation for all other freedoms. Japan is the United States’ great ally who we have the greatest appreciation for. However, concern has now been raised by prominent leaders around the world that believe Japan is not upholding its religious freedom commitment as a signer of the UN Human Rights Declaration,” she said in her taped message. The video was prepared for a lecture event, titled “The Crisis of Religious Freedom and Democracy in Japan,” held in Tokyo and organized by the Japanese Committee of the International Religious Freedom Alliance.
Kito and his network of 350 liberal lawyers (a figure pompously promoted in the press conference) are calling the office of the President of the United States of America insignificant and irrelevant (i.e., “a small number of overseas intellectuals”). In the same breath, Kito said President Trump and his team are either uninformed or ignorant, or both (since they act “without knowing about Japan.”) This attitude is un-Japanese and arrogant.
Left-wing lawyers are blinded by political revenge. Ostensibly, without any thought or consideration, they willingly dishonor Japan on the global stage. The lawyers’ harm to “public welfare” (the legal term used to justify the dissolution order circumventing criminal conviction) is far worse than the church’s misconduct of collecting large donations from faithful followers which is litigated in civil court, when needed. More importantly, the church has instituted successful, self-imposed reforms from within and not a single civil case has been filed in the last seven years.
The harm to “public welfare” by the cadre of communist cronies is established and lengthy. They have: orchestrated the kidnapping, confinement, coercion, and deprogramming of 4,300 Japanese adults; pitted parents against their own adult children; extorted vast sums of money from parents and relatives; choreographed a seemingly endless stream of litigation to milk the system for funds needed to continue their charade; divided families which may take generations to heal (if ever); and undermined journalistic integrity and judicial independence. NNLASS are anti-Japanese activists promoting a communist agenda, masquerading as “lawyers.” They shame Japan’s pristine image.
In broad daylight, a leftist coup is being perpetrated in Japan. Two shots were fired and one man was killed. This case is drawing international attention and Japan is on the brink. If the leftists achieve their goal, this will be the most successful communist takeover in human history. Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels would be proud.