A believer’s two-year-long ordeal at the hands of notorious deprogrammers in Japan: “They made my own family lock me away.”
Inside Japan’s Notorious Coercive Faith-Breaking Movement: “I Was Locked Up for My Faith”
Geneva conference June16th, 2025
Speech by Dr. Hirohisa Koide at a side event organized by the Universal Peace Federation (UPF) at the 59th session of the Human Rights Council, in hall 25 of the United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland, June 16th, 2025. Dr. Koide was introduced by the moderator Heiner Handschin as “a Japanese national, a medical doctor, and a victim of kidnapping and also so-called deprogramming, forced de-conversion, or forced renunciation of his belief. And this has happened based on non-state actors, but with the blessing of state and local authorities, which turned a blind eye to it.”
Prepared by Knut Holdhus
My name is Hirohisa Koide (小出浩久). I have worked as a medical doctor in Tokyo. I’m a believer of the Unification Church / the Family Federation.
First of all, I’d like everyone to know that the act of abduction and confinement of members of the Family Federation was supported not only by people who are money-oriented or anti-religious but also by mainstream Christian pastors.
When [adult] children [Dr. Koide used the word “children”, but he speaks about adult men and women who are someone’s children] join a new religion, many parents may find it difficult to understand their [adult] children’s words and actions. Worried parents visited Christian churches seeking advice on how to deal with their [adult] children.
The pastors of the Christian churches were generally simple and honest, and the atmosphere in the churches was peaceful. But the pastors who engaged in “forced rescue” of believers had become extremely, extremely radical under the influence of leftwing activists. So the churches became such places where the terrible acts of abduction and confinement were recommended.
Without the loving atmosphere of the Christian churches, worried parents would not have been so easily convinced to resort to abduction and confinement for their own [adult] children. Two major groups of Christians, the United Church of Christ in Japan and Japan Alliance Christ Church, provided a strong foundation for anti-Family Federation groups.
Now I’m going to tell you about my own experience of abduction and confinement. I developed my faith in the Family Federation when I was a medical student. In 1990, I began working as a physician at a hospital in Tokyo.
The hospital was created by a female doctor who was a member of the Family Federation, and many doctors who were believers gathered at the hospital. I was very satisfied to work there.
However, at that time, a lot of negative “information” against the Family Federation had been spread throughout Japan by the mass media. My parents got a lot of this “information” from my friends and teachers of my medical school. Some of them introduced my parents to an anti-Family Federation group. The leader was Takashi Miyamura (宮村峻), a professional deprogrammer.
The group’s meetings were held at the Shinjuku West Church. At those meetings, they were taught how to prepare for the confinement, how to ask relatives for cooperation, and even how to get in shape mentally during the confinement.
Especially my mother was influenced by them, so she decided to lock me up and have me give up my faith. Due to her influence, my father, brother, sister and many joined in the plan to confine me.
On 17th June 1992, when I went to my parents’ house, I was surrounded by about 15 relatives. I was thrown into a car and brought to the apartment. In front of the building, about ten former believers were waiting.
The windows in that room were fitted with metal bars so they couldn’t be opened. The view was also blocked. The entrance door was locked with a chain, and a man sat there 24 hours a day. The room felt like it was on the 5th floor or higher.
About seven relatives stayed there with me. I was concerned about the negative effect on my patients’ physical and mental health. For several days I pleaded with everyone to let me contact the hospital. My parents and relatives gave me permission to record information about my patients and send it to the hospital. However, Miyamura, the real leader of this action, rejected it.
Then my family demanded that I explain the absurdities of the teachings and the activities of the Family Federation. I continued to cry out for them to stop the violent religious persecution that disregarded my basic human rights.
To my surprise, Hiroshi Hirata, a lawyer close to Miyamura, came to the room. The lawyer assured everyone that the situation was not illegal. My relatives accepted the lawyer’s words.
I was forced to read the New and Old Testament and a book that teaches the “absurdities” of the doctrine of the Family Federation. That night former believers and Miyamura came to the room to persuade me.
Miyamura thought violence was necessary to change the mind of believers. So I was beaten up quite a bit by both my father and my brother. A bruise around my eye caused by my father’s knee kick wouldn’t go away for over a week.
My colleagues at the hospital located the place where I was confined. The president of the hospital had petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus from the Tokyo High Court.
An order was issued for my parents to appear before the High Court. The notice was sent to the apartment, but Miyamura ignored the notice and instructed my relatives to move to another place.
We all were moved to Niigata City in the middle of the night. It is more than 250 kilometers from Tokyo. As soon as we arrived, Matsunaga (松永康智), pastor of Niitsu Evangelical Christian Church, visited us. He was in a cooperative relationship with Miyamura, and they used the same methods – lock believers up, use biblical language, confuse them and make them give up their faith.
However, their beliefs were quite different. Miyamura had no Christian faith. Pastor Matsunaga was a so-called Calvinist. The confinement and persuasion continued for over ten months.
During that time, my parents could hardly ever leave that room. Furthermore, my father kept calling Miyamura (宮村峻) almost every night to report our situation. My father would be cursed [by Miyamura], “Because of your bad attitude your son can’t abandon that strange religion!”
One night, my father said to me, “If I let you go, and the activities of the anti-Family Federation movement become known publicly, they could not continue such activities anymore. I can’t let you out alive, I will kill you and then I will die too.”
Shouting that, he grabbed me by the neck and pushed me down. I realized that he was mentally exhausted. I had no choice but to lie and say that I had renounced my face.
He had been trained in the Japanese army when he was young, and he had said, “Through that training, I am prepared to die for the purpose.”
For fear of being killed by my father I was forced to act as an anti-Family Federation person. That was the beginning of my father’s mental suffering. His pain lasted for one year. On Miyamura’s order, I was moved to a mountain villa. There, I was interviewed by a journalist, Yoshifu Arita (有田芳生), and a reporter from the popular weekly magazine named Bunshun.
The contents were used to criticize the Family Federation. Arita is currently a member of the Japanese Diet. Then I was forced to appear on a TV program called the Special Report made by TBS, Tokyo Broadcasting System.
I was taken out from the room to the biggest riverbank in Niigata and filmed by TV camera. My father and several former believers surrounded me.
When filming, it seemed that Miyamura, the deprogrammer, was the leading person there. When my comments didn’t match his thoughts, he immediately interrupted me. He then said that the Family Federation was a group of crazy people who lacked human love.
The parts of my remarks were used by the anti-Family Federation media. After exposing myself to such an extent, I was allowed to leave my apartment and walk to Matsunaga’s (松永康智) church while my father was watching. There were about 10 people attending church who were in the same position as me, forced to give up their faith.
Only one month after attending the church, accompanied by my parents, I was brought together with Miyamura to two lawyers, Yamaguchi (山口広) and Kito (紀藤正樹). They had come with much violent criticism of the Family Federation on TV. I had to speak according to the instructions of my father and Miyamura.
The lawyers knew I was not free. Attorney Kito said, “I think it’s time to let you go, don’t you? But I’ll have to let Miyamura make that decision.” I couldn’t tell them of my basic human rights. I was forced to sign a legal contract to sue the Family Federation and the hospital.
I was not the only one in such a situation. At Matsunaga’s church, believers who had just been released from confinement were encouraged to meet such lawyers. I had learned that there was a group of lawyers who used people to achieve their own political purpose.
These former believers had been harmed by being confined by their own parents, and they still felt the fear of being locked up again. For that reason, they had no choice but to file a lawsuit as advised to by their lawyer.
And as soon as I had filed the lawsuit, I was supposed to engage in even more traumatic behavior. I was forced to go to the apartment where believers were confined, and I had to talk with them. I still regret my visit to the rooms of innocent believers. They were definitely suffering.
Matsunaga’s church held consultations and seminars for parents of believers every weekend. The pastor and the former believers convinced the parents that the only way to help the members was to confine them.
The pastor also explained the specific steps parents should take to lock their son or daughter up. It was also emphasized that only parents and siblings could do it.
In doing this, by recommending confinement, I had become a core member of the group. I felt that I was like a living dead. By the way, I started to work in a hospital near the church as an assistant physician. I got the pleasure of being able to help others.
After two months of work at the hospital, I got some money in my own bank account. I was then able to get out of the group, and I ran away to Tokyo.
I knew that my parents would be shocked. For the next two years, I could not tell my parents where I was. I thought that they were still interacting with Miyamura’s group and might have imprisoned me again.
In fact, following Miyamura’s advice, my father donated $20,000 to Matsunaga’s church for the construction of a new building.
After I wrote about this two-year experience in a book, which made the anti-Family Federation activities publicly known, I could safely communicate with my parents and siblings.
My mother got Alzheimer’s disease and forgot all her resentment toward the Family Federation. I finally began to feel her original warm love for me.
My father said he had spent $200,000 on my kidnapping.
Thank you.
Featured image above: The panel of speakers at the side event to the 59th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland on 16th June 2025. From left: Norishige Kondo, Attorney Patricia Duval, Heiner Handschin, Dr. Massimo Introvigne, Dr. Hirohisa Koide, Jacques Marion.
Truth will set you free.