Unification Church ties to lawmakers emerges as major political issue in Japan

It's amazing the religulous

It's amazing to see so many people who are supposed to be educated, sensible and work for the people to make the nation a better place for its citizens having ties to a cult group. It actually scares the sh#t out of me. How are we supposed to trust their decision making it they don't have the common sense to stay miles away from such groups

no money has moved from the LDP to this entity, or from this entity to the LDP.

Carefully chosen words. How about politicians in LDP or other parties? How about other forms of bribe?

The Unification Church has encroached on Japanese politics since the time of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, and the influence of the Unification Church has been passed down and strengthened for three generations through hereditary succession to Shinzo Abe. Therefore, not only is the principle of separation of church and state not observed in Japan. The ruling party is composed of one political party and two religions: the Liberal Democratic Party, the Unification Church, and the Soka Gakkai.

The recent TV special on TBS (YouTube version) is probably the best overall summary of the situation thus far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoTRyhI7uak

Do investigate thoroughly squeezing all pus out. We are to exterminate any cult, especially the one from the peninsula

Many Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers are said to have connections with the church. It remains to be seen, however, what, if anything, the ruling party intends to do about the matter.

Japan's system of hostage detention of suspects of well known. And it has been announced the assassin will be held until almost the end of the year in psychiatric evaluation, incommunicado.

The LDP wants the motivation for the assassination being ties to the Moonies as crepuscular as possible so that works to their advantage in obscuring the issue.

In the old Soviet Union the psychiatric establishment was used to discredit political dissent. And not only in the old Communist Bloc as we have seen with Julian Assange.

The LDP could be returning to such a playbook to muddy the waters when the suspect has clearly stated his motivations, however warped their expression may have been.

The Japanese Communist Party on Thursday held the first meeting of an investigative team set up to look into lawmakers' links to the church. Akira Koike, head of its Secretariat, pledged to pursue the matter in parliament to uncover cases of "collusion."

A legislative level investigation like the American January 6th hearings would definitely be in order. Could be a game changer for Japan.

Dog willing.

...two people from the church had bought tickets for his fundraising parties....

”Buying tickets for fundraising parties” is a common way of evading donation disclosure requirements. How many tickets did these two people buy? 1,000? What happened to the tickets? Were they then "resold"? And if so, to whom or which entity?

Greater disclosure regarding political "ticket sales for fundraising parties" is required.

And I bet any oppositions which aren't joining this move in the same tension are actually tied to UC or any other cult. Look how Yamaguchi from Komeito responded to media .... " NO comment"

What difference will it make? They'll just point to their election win and say the public has mandated them to be tied to the religion. They might well apologize and promise to be transparent, but then it'll be back to business as usual.

This should start calling for investigations into the biggest Religious faction Kometo and their connections with the tidal force of money ever flowing into 創価学会Soka Gakkai.

In 20 years I predict that many will regard Abe's assassin in a relatively positive light. His actions may have started a fresh look at politicians and their shady ties. Then again, as they are all feeding from the same slops, all will be swept under the carpet.

This has been going on for decades and they all knew about it. It’s only now that it has been exposed they are launching an investigation. A few politicians might be scolded and make a deep bow apology but nothing more will come if it.

The Unification Church is anti-Japanese in nature, justifying its exploitations as a revenge to the colonial past.

旧統一教会の正体　植民地支配の怨みを解くため日本はただの献金組織【報道1930】

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/d7b20b5ca1da3817e1b2169bc622457d1c92a814

It's ironic that some right-wing LDP lawmakers have had ties to the cult.

This is one of the biggest chance for oppositions, if they are clean, to turn over the single-party ruling democracy.

The way Komeito behaves like a political bat looks exactly the same as how UC, the cult, has been surviving for this long. Wake up

To paraphrase George Carlin.

It's a big club and you ain't in it!

Today's Daily Gendai reports that the 35 lawmakers in the Abe faction of the LDP are connected closely in one way or another with the so-called Unification Church, renamed the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, that was originally founded by the self-proclaimed disciple of Christ, Son Myong Moon, in South Korea during the Cold War.  

Moon and his Japanese sympathizers, spearheaded by Nobusuke Kishi, the slain ex-prime minister’s grandfather, were connected closely in that they were staunch anti-communists. It’s said that Kishi helped the Unification Church establish its chapter in Japan.

No wonder that the assassin, Tetsuya Yamagami, believed that Abe had been an important supporter of the Unification Church.

Already voted and LDP has a constitutional supermajority - this "issue" has no impact.

I particularly like this sentence: “It remains to be seen, however, what, if anything, the ruling party intends to do about the matter.” I guess it’s just a rhetoric questions since everyone knows the ruling party is planning to do nothing if some of their own members are involved.

The article shows a photo of the Communist Party wanting to investigate the Unification Church’s LDP links.

Since the church was founded on anti-communism, it is a no-brainer that the communists see this as a golden chance to get maximum political benefit, making themselves look squeaky clean.

In Faulty Towers it was "Don't mention the war"!

In Japan it is "Don't mention Soka Gakkai"!

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-09-08-me-3018-story.html#:~:text=The%20organization%2C%20Soka%20Gakkai%2C%20recently%20paid%20%244.5%20million,a%20discarded%20safe%20in%20a%20Yokohama%20scrap%20yard.

It would be amusing to see any reporter ask Yamaguchi Natsuo ( the Komeito leader) his opinion on this issue.

Never happen

Phew. Glad that news waited to make it big until a couple of weeks after the election.

I am hoping that Japanese government will come clean on and flush these cults out.

"NO MORE CULTS" is what the Japanese people need to start shouting in large demonstrations. All members or even anyone affiliated with the UC must disclose his or her ties and resign, this nation deserves better.

no money has moved from the LDP to this entity, or from this entity to the LDP."

So what you are saying is that you funnel donations to the LDP either through individual church members, or through other legal entities then?

Religion is power, cults are even more power. Check what the Pope is up to today.

Cult or whatever, money talks. Politicians will sell their family if the donation they get is big enough.

""There are similarities between proposals made by the anti-communist group launched by Moon and the political philosophy of Abe and other conservative members of the LDP. Both have pushed for revisions to the Constitution and boosting Japan's defense capabilities, and both oppose the legalization of same-sex marriage.""

As time passes we will begin to see how the UC used Japanese lawmakers to revise the constitution and drag Japan and possibly the U.S. into war with communist China or even Russia, this is beginning to really stink

We are so out of our depth in solving this type of issue. Politicians start salivating when they see organizational votes and political donations. Organizational religious groups can offer both. Politicians/lawmakers make the law controlling this as loophole riddled as they want. Therefore, the truth about their corrupt relationship will never come out. In a voting democracy, money talks as organizing voters to cast their ballots in a certain way costs a lot, and money can hush things up too. Pretty dismal, but it's a systematic flaw.

Money from Japan-based religious cults was pouring into Kishi's pocket as far back as 1948 when he got out of jail which became the gate-way to a life-long addiction to "sanctified" slush funds that the Moonies learned to feed for their own nefarious purposes when they wormed their way into Japan.

ReasonandWisdomNipponToday  11:29 pm JST

Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church.

Korean hands all over this problem.

Korean Unification Church taking advantage of Japanese citizens, and taking all the money they have. All the resources they have!

The LDP are fully complicit in their activities.

Religion and Politics never mix well.

Unfortunately religion and politics mix only too well and the result is the intellectual equivalent of doping. Right-wing politics and totalitarian religions work hand in hand to delude people and to scare them into submission. Example: Religion: If you don't give us lots of money (like all your money, sinners) something bad will happen--like all your ancestors will suffer eternal heartburn. Politics: If you don't raise the military budget, at expense of schools, housing and medical care, something terrible will happen--like Putin is going to take over the federal government and bomb all the conservatives.

Totalitarian religions and the LDP monopoly work well together.

One should also, consider the CCP's involvement in this.... ironically.

Also what happened to separation from state and church

I looked up Reunification Church isnt even Japanese it’s Korean isnt this Foreign Meddling?

Sad that Mr. Abe ended up as the target of the gunman, but at least this incident opened, I hope, formal investigation into the cult. The lawyers for victims of the church finally have their say in the court of public opinion. If so many LDP members are beholden to this group and Soka Gakkai, I doubt if any drastic punishment or action will be taken against them, but at least the shady organization is out in the open now.

Shake of bad karma

Anyone who's actually studied Buddhist or Hindu beliefs knows that there's no such thing as good karma or bad karma only - dharma and karma.

The Guatama Buddha was a Hindu and most definitely not a Christian !

And shinto is a philosophy not a religion.

Japan makes it very clear that Shinto and Buddhism are not the same or intertwined

Ancestral karma

This is false also because the belief in the transmigration of your soul holds only you responsible for your previous actions and not of the actions of your ancestors.

Karma is the comeuppance of actions you knew were bad but did them anyway

Dharma is the coming around of fortunate things due to your selfless , unconditionally compassionate actions

@reasonandwisdomnippon

Reading your comments immediately remind me that most Japanese and including the royal family are actually originally from the old Korean kingdoms and your DNA is mostly han Chinese.

There's too much hate being generated towards Koreans and Chinese by you.

Don't be surprised when you start to hear about the CCP's involvement....

There are Christian Churches, Muslim Mosques, Jewish Synagogues, Jain Temples, and Hindu Temples. All originate from foreign countries.

I'd like to see these wretched cults be done away with.

That means The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification and the Soka Gakkai as well.

The latter may appear to be more "legit" than the former, but they're no different when it comes to their false promises of happiness, their zealous preaching and dissemination of lies and their relentless pressuring of members and their relatives to vote for the candidates they've got in their pockets. Then, there's the money, the bigger the donation, the happier you'll be, or something like that is what they'll tell you.

Many non-Japanese do not understand that religions can not be banned.

Religion is protected by the constitution which in 75 years has never been amended.

Selling "Opium of the People" to the countless millions living "lives of quiet desperation" has always been a lucrative racket for politicians everywhere from time immemorial, even in its modern 20th century garb dressed up as sanctimonious nationalism/fascism or even atheistic "communism". It's high time some of those Moonie monies went into the taxpayers' pool instead of into the private pockets of politicians.

It was the Americans who wrote the constitution and included Article 20 on religious freedom.

It is time for the LDP to amend its constitution and prevent donations from religious groups like the Unification Church.

@Wallace

The Japanese constitution came into effect may 3, 1947

The first legislation signed by emperor showa was april 20 1947

Influential in US politics too.

You seem to know so little about the Komeito. Suggest a visit to their website might help. Did you refuse the covid relief money?

There is no comparison between the Komeito and the UC.

Of course not. Comparison is between Soka-Gakkai and UC.

You seem to know a lot about the Komeito. Are you possibly aware of ratio of Non Soka-Gakkai-members over entire Komeito party members ？

The Komieto Party is a junior partner of the government and probably thinks this is not the time for a comment. The problem is the LDPs, not the Komeito.

Saying "No-comment" is too strong to suggest that it is not appropriate time to make a comment.

The finances of the Komeito are transparent and audited accounts are published every year.

So were all the parties as that is the law.

Komeito website says you don't have to be a Japanese to become a party-member. As far as I know, it is just Komeito and Shaminto (MIzuho party) which wave nationality to join the party. As you seem to know a lot, I appreciate what Komeito wants to do by accepting foreigners into the party?

https://www.komei.or.jp/faq/