Apartment Turned Prison: 12 Years to Break Faith

Toru Goto recounts how a family dispute became a 12-year ordeal of abduction, confinement and attempted coercive faith-breaking in a Tokyo apartment made into a prison

Part 1 of “My Experience of Abduction, Confinement, and Forced Deconversion”, a testimony on 19^th September 2026 by Toru Goto (後藤徹), a Japanese member of the Family Federation and victim of attempted coercive faith-breaking – locked up for over 12 years in apartment turned prison. This first-hand witness account – of high relevance for the current dissolution case against the Family Federation in Japan – was delivered at a Zoom conference organized by Peace and Reconciliation Together (PnR-T), a Dutch-registered foundation focused on reconciliation, peacebuilding, dialogue, and healing historical conflicts.

See part 2: Escaped from 1st Confinement, But Abducted Again

See part 3: Inside the Room Where They Tried to Break Faith

See part 4: Trapped: 13 Breaking Faith of 1 in Locked Room

See part 5: For 12 Years They Took My Freedom, Not My Faith

See part 6: Thrown Out After Being Locked Up for 12 Years

See part 7: The Grueling, Lonely 10-km Walk to Freedom

I was confined for 12 years and five months, from September 1995 until February 2008. In terms of age, I was 31 when it began and 44 when it ended. These should have been the brightest years of my life.

I was not confined in a foreign country or in some remote mountain area far from civilization. I was moved between three apartments, and for the last ten years or so I was confined in an apartment in Tokyo.

This photograph was taken immediately before I was confined for those 12 years and five months.

What I would like to tell you today is not simply what happened to me. I want to explain how I maintained my faith during those 12 years and five months of confinement – what I suffered, and what enabled me to preserve both my heart and my faith.

See also Abducted for Their Faith: Japan’s Untold Story

First, let me tell you about my family.

There were five of us: my parents, my older brother, myself, and my younger sister. We were a very ordinary family who lived happily and got along well.

My father was a company employee who was extremely dedicated to his work and very capable. Although he could be strict and scold us when necessary, he also had a warm and friendly side. For example, he would sometimes make food himself and serve it to the family.

My mother was gentle and reserved, somewhat prone to worrying and conscious of what other people thought, but she was a wonderful mother who sincerely loved her family.

My brother and I sometimes argued, but whenever I had a problem, he was someone I could turn to for advice. I remember teaching my younger sister before her exams and celebrating together when she achieved good grades.

Perhaps we were just an ordinary family like any other. But it was our unique place in this world – the one place that belonged to us.

None of us could ever have imagined that we would later engage in such a bitter struggle over this family and our living environment.

I first encountered the teachings of the Unification Church in 1986, when I was in my fourth year at university.

My older brother called me and said,

“There’s a place where you can study some useful things. Why don’t you come with me and take a look?”

I was worried that my brother had gotten involved with something strange. My father also said, “Why don’t you go and see what it’s like?” I went with the intention, so to speak, of bringing my brother back.

When I first watched the introductory video, I found it boring and one-sided, and I complained quite strongly to the staff.

But my brother pleaded with me:

“I’m sure this will be useful to you in the future, so why don’t you study it?”

I thought that if this really was a suspicious organization, I could simply leave together with my brother. So I began studying.

But once I actually began learning, I became deeply absorbed in its teachings.

At that time, I was struggling with spiritual and existential questions that I could not discuss even with my closest friends or family. I was depressed by the irrational things I encountered in the world – war, crime, adultery and so on – and I felt ashamed of my own selfishness. I was tormented by a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness, unable to find hope or value in human beings or in life itself.

At the same time, somewhere deep inside me I was searching for a noble way of life and for an unchanging, genuine love.

It was precisely at such a time that, through my brother, I encountered the teachings of the Unification Church.

For the first time I encountered ideas such as the existence of God; that God‘s purpose in creating was to realize love and joy; that God and human beings are related as parent and child; and that human history is the history of God‘s efforts to save humanity.

I was deeply shocked and moved by these teachings, which were completely new to me. It felt as though a dead soul had come back to life, and I became a member of the Unification Church.

In 1987, my older brother, who was the most devoted of the three siblings in his involvement with the Unification Church, suddenly disappeared.

Three months later, my father contacted me and said that my brother wanted to see me. We arranged to meet. My father took me to a hotel in Tokyo. When we entered one of the rooms, my brother was there.

Seeing him looking healthy, I almost cried with relief.

But then he told me that he had decided to leave the Unification Church and asked me to listen to what he had to say.

My brother had already been subjected to abduction and confinement for the purpose of breaking his faith, and he had lost his faith. Now they intended to break mine as well.

The door to the room had been secured so that it could not be opened from the inside.

I realized what had happened.

Continued in part 2: Escaped from 1st Confinement, But Abducted Again

See part 3: Inside the Room Where They Tried to Break Faith

See part 4: Trapped: 13 Breaking Faith of 1 in Locked Room

See part 5: For 12 Years They Took My Freedom, Not My Faith

See part 6: Thrown Out After Being Locked Up for 12 Years

See part 7: The Grueling, Lonely 10-km Walk to Freedom

See also Abducted for Their Faith: Japan’s Untold Story

Featured image above: Toru Goto. Image: FFWPU

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