Woman escapee still haunted by psychological scars recounts details of forcible detention as she was held locked up for a month by her own family who had been “brainwashed” by cynic faith-breaker to use any means to de-convert her
Tokyo, 1st May 2025 – Published as an article in the Japanese newspaper Sekai Nippo. Republished with permission. Translated from Japanese. Original article.
Abducted, Detained, and Driven to a Disturbed Mental State
The Dark World of Deprogramming Spreading Amid the Move to Dissolve the Family Federation (6)
by the Religious Freedom Investigative Team of the editorial department of Sekai Nippo
prepared by Knut Holdhus
Voices of victims shared on social media
“I am a current believer of the Family Federation (Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, formerly the Unification Church). In the past, I was abducted, confined, and forcibly pressured to renounce my faith.”
A woman in her 50s using the pseudonym “Murasakino Neko” on X (formerly Twitter) began this April sharing her experiences of abduction and coercive faith-breaking [See editor’s note below]. She revealed to our paper her motivation for going public: “I had prepared a written statement to oppose the dissolution order, but my message didn’t get through. I couldn’t let things end like that.”
She criticizes the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology for submitting past court rulings as evidence in which testimony from former believers who left the Family Federation through deprogramming [See editor’s note below] was heavily cited. She asserts, “Statements from ex-believers who were forcibly brainwashed (to renounce their faith) while under confinement lack credibility.”
In 1987, Murasakino says she was detained in a room in an apartment in Kyoto by her family. Her father threatened her, “We can stay here for years until this is resolved.”
Her parents bombarded her all day long with baseless slander about the religious organization, saying things like “There are people who had been killed, buried under the church.”
She recounts, “The psychological pain became so intense that I ran to the bathroom, but they used a spare key to open the door and drag me out.”
After two weeks in this unimaginable situation, she and her family were pushed into an abnormal psychological state. She began to feel mentally cornered to the point of contemplating jumping out of the window.
Before this ordeal, her family had a good relationship – she often met them for meals. Her father, in particular, frequently visited the church and tried to understand her faith. So why did her parents suddenly change?
The turning point was when an acquaintance critical of the church introduced them to the late Pastor Takeo Funada (船田武雄), whose church they began attending. Funada implanted false information such as “You’ll stop caring about murder,” and “You’ll become a criminal,” convincing the parents that the church was dangerous.
Later, the parents confessed how they felt at the time, “We thought we had no choice but to ‘protect’ her (through abduction and confinement) to stop her from becoming a criminal.”
They also told her, “The pastor scolded us.”
When Pastor Funada visited the apartment, he found Murasakino resisting. She recalls: “My father restrained me in a headlock, my mother grabbed my hair and forced my face upward, and sometimes my siblings kicked me in the stomach.”
While she was being held down, Funada mocked, “Doesn’t the Unification Church teach you to love everyone?” He shouted at her to make her renounce her faith.
The only way Murasakino could think to escape was by drinking detergent and be taken to hospital. After downing the liquid, she became violently ill and pleaded with her mother through tears to take her to the hospital. But her mother coldly replied, “The pastor told us things like this could happen.” Even her cries, and she being prepared to risk her life, were anticipated in advance. It took an hour before she was hospitalized.
Even in the hospital, she was constantly supervised by her family, unable to escape. Discussions even began about transferring her to a psychiatric hospital.
She says she was only able to escape because of a “miracle”. One of the nurses happened to be a member of the religious organization. She contacted the church and helped her escape. Murasakino ran barefoot down the emergency stairs and finally gained her freedom after about a month.
However, she lived in fear of being abducted again and had to hide her real name and stay out of public view. She developed severe PTSD [Post-traumatic stress disorder] and was unable to live a normal life for years.
Intervention by hostile forces leads to family breakdown
After her escape from the hospital, her parents frantically searched for her. Under Funada’s guidance, they were urged to try confinement again. A journalist from a news agency introduced by Funada kept feeding them information on Murasakino’s whereabouts. The details were so precise that she suspected they had a special collaborator.
In notebooks kept by her parents, who documented Funada’s instructions, there were notes such as:
- “Just send letters, items, or cash.”
- “The church members have little personal money, so she will definitely accept it.”
- “If we keep sending things, there may be a mistake in forwarding that reveals her address.”
This shows how the deprogramming [See editor’s note below] of the believers had been ingeniously systematized and was methodically instructed.
Reconciliation with her parents came only after her eldest son died in an accident, and the Family Federation held a “seonghwa” ceremony (a funeral service). Her parents, seeing the sincerity of the members preparing the event, were moved.
As for why a second abduction never happened, her parents said, “We gradually realized that it’s hard to change someone’s mind through force.” Reflecting on Funada, they said, “His determination was incredible, almost obsessive. Regardless of right or wrong, the will of someone with faith is powerful.”
In her interview, Murasakino said, “Because of the intervention of groups opposed to the Family Federation, many families have been destroyed and are suffering. The 4,300 victims of abduction and confinement experienced hellish suffering, and the families who carried it out are burdened with guilt.”
She also criticized recent media coverage, saying, “Terms like ‘cult’, ‘brainwashing group’, and ‘mind control’ have taken on a life of their own, making believers seem like some kind of terrifying ‘monsters.’”
Featured image above: Helped by nurse to escape. Illustration: Grok xAI, 2nd May 2025.
[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.]