Abduction disguised as rescue: Tokyo paper exposes dehumanizing abuse as “mind control” pretext is used by faith-breakers and anti-religious lawyers
Tokyo, 25th April 2025 – Published as an article in the Japanese newspaper Sekai Nippo. Republished with permission. Translated from Japanese. Original article.
How “Deprogrammers” Justify Faith-Breaking
The Dark World of Deprogramming Spreading Amid the Move to Dissolve the Family Federation (2)
by the Religious Freedom Investigative Team of the editorial department of Sekai Nippo
prepared by Knut Holdhus
It’s based on “mind control.”
“Parents are told that their children are under mind control, and that it’s difficult for them to escape solo.” said Toru Goto (後藤徹), representative of the “National Association of Victims of Abduction, Confinement, and Forced De-Conversion”, during a commemorative lecture on 10th February 2025, for the release of his autobiography Shitō (Deadly Struggle), published by Sogei-sha. Goto himself was confined in an apartment for 12 years and 5 months by his family members who opposed his faith in the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (formerly the Unification Church).
Christian pastors and activists known as “deprogrammers” (faith-breakers) are often involved in the confinement of Family Federation believers, acting on requests from families to forcibly make the believers renounce their faith. Parents are told that only specialists can help and, under the guise of “protection”, end up resorting to abduction and confinement. Goto explained this, describing such actions as “faith-breaking” [See editor’s note below] and “psychological lynching”.
One of the reasons why parents commit these acts, Goto says, is the belief in the “mind control theory”. This theory not only justifies abductions but is also used as a defense in court by those who carried out such acts.
In July 2014, a couple in Hiroshima Prefecture who were members of the Family Federation were abducted on the same day and separated from their children. The husband was tied up with ropes and had a black cloth bag placed over his head when he was forced into a vehicle. The wife, while visiting her parents, was tied by her wrists and ankles, shoved head-first into a sleeping bag, and transported by car to an apartment used for confinement.
The couple was released within a few days after managing to report the incident to the police. In May 2016, they filed a civil lawsuit in Hiroshima District Court seeking damages from the relatives and Christian associates involved in their confinement.
The defendants, represented by attorney Masaki Goro (郷路征記) from the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales, argued based on mind control theory. They claimed the couple had been through a “transformation of personality” due to their faith in the Family Federation and always ran away from discussions. There, a minimal physical force was used to “give them a chance to think for themselves.” Goro (Gouro) argued that without isolating them from the religious organization, escaping mind control was impossible.
The lawyer also claimed the religious organization violated the couple’s rights to freedom of thought, religion, property, and the pursuit of happiness, asserting these conditions would persist for life unless the couple left the organization. Thus, Goro (Gouro) justified the abduction and confinement as lawful.
However, none of these claims were accepted by the court. In 2020, the Hiroshima High Court ruled that the confinement was a “malicious criminal act that posed a serious threat to life and physical safety.” It concluded that the act could by no means be called “minimal physical force” and was not justifiable. The court ordered the defendants to pay approximately 1.7 million yen in damages. The mind control theory was completely disregarded in court.
Though relatives claimed the couple was “constantly running away”, the wife, Yukie Kanamori (pseudonym, in her 50s), said they had been in frequent contact before the abduction. She said, “The discussion just went nowhere because our parents wanted us to leave the church, and we didn’t.”
She also recalled feeling a deep fear from her parents during confinement – as if they believed they had to make her leave the religious organization before they themselves became “criminals”.
If the prejudiced view that “the Family Federation is evil” is being stoked by mind control theory and used to justify deprogramming (faith-breaking) [See editor’s note below], then one might ask, “Who is really being ‘controlled’?”
Featured image above: A reenactment of Yukie Kanamori (pseudonym) having been forced into a sleeping bag and abducted into a van by several men. Image provided by the person involved, partially edited.
[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.]