Dissolution, System of Faith-Breaking, Lawsuits

New book reveals shocking Japanese system of abduction, confinement, faith-breaking and lawsuits, all orchestrated in order to get religious minority Family Federation dissolved

Tokyo, 20th December 2025 – Published as an article in the Japanese newspaper Sekai Nippo. Republished with permission. Translated from Japanese. Original article. 

[Interview Feature]

Is the Objective of the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales to Crush the Anti-Espionage Law?

Part 1 of Interview with Masumi Fukuda, Author of “Sacrificed by the State” (国家の生贄)

by Susumu Fujihashi (藤橋進)

See also part 2: A Dissolution Built on Fabrications, Speculation

See also Expert: “Is Dissolution Framework Constitutional?”

See also: Selective Justice: Special Law Against One Faith

See also Upbringing No Excuse as Abe Assassin Gets Life

See also Apartment Turned Prison: 12 Years to Break Faith

Questioning a series of developments and media coverage surrounding the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (formerly the Unification Church), nonfiction writer Masumi Fukuda (福田 ますみ) pursued the truth behind them. Her book Sacrificed by the State (Asuka Shinsha), which compiles and expands upon articles she serialized irregularly in the monthly magazine Hanada, has now been published. We spoke with Ms. Fukuda about her purpose in writing the book and her 1,200 days of reporting.

Abduction → Forced Renunciation → Lawsuits: Has this become a system?

A strong causal relationship with the dissolution order against the Family Federation

Interviewer: Special Editorial Committee Member Susumu Fujihashi (藤橋進)

‒ What was your objective in writing this book?

There are two central pillars to what I want to argue: abduction and confinement, and the true nature of the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales (全国霊感商法対策弁護士連絡会) ‒ also simply known as Zenkoku Benren (全国弁連).

I had known, from reading a bit of Our Unpleasant Neighbors by Kazuhiro Yonemoto (米本和広), that believers of the Family Federation were being abducted, confined, and subjected to forced renunciation of faith (deprogramming or faith-breaking) [See editor’s note below]. But I was shocked to learn that there were more than 4,300 victims. In the book I describe it as “unspeakably horrific”, and through my reporting I learned that people suffered terribly ‒ some sustained serious injuries while escaping, there were suicides, and even women who were raped. It was deeply shocking.

When I interviewed Toru Goto (後藤徹), who had been confined for 12 years and 5 months, I was even more astonished to hear from him that this had become a system. Believers who were abducted, confined, and forcibly made to renounce their faith would then become “victims” and sue the Family Federation. This became a recurring cycle. I felt this was something that had to be written about.

Then there is the true nature of Zenkoku Benren [National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales], which the mass media does not report at all. While wondering why they have so fiercely opposed the Family Federation for so long, I searched for materials at the Soichi Oya Library. There I came across articles in the May and July 1987 issues of the monthly magazine Zenbo titled “Political Activity Under the Guise of ‘Victim Relief’” and “The True Aim of ‘Crushing Spiritual Sales’ Is to ‘Crush the Anti-Espionage Law’.”

I asked Toru Goto (後藤徹) whether he knew that the real objective of Zenkoku Benren, which claims to rescue victims of spiritual and fraudulent sales, was actually to block the enactment of an anti-espionage law. He said he did. I was stunned, and at the same time I felt a profound and hopeless gap in information between believers and ordinary citizens like myself.

‒ Attorney Hiroshi Yamaguchi (山口広), who later became secretary-general of Zenkoku Benren, served as one of the legal representatives for the Socialist Party in a defamation lawsuit that the International Federation for Victory over Communism won against the party. This lawsuit arose after the Socialist Party’s newspaper, Shakai Shinpo, reported during the 1982 Levchenko Affair ‒ when a Soviet KGB spy defected ‒ that “Levchenko’s testimony was a conspiracy by the International Federation for Victory over Communism and the U.S. CIA.”

In an article dated 20^th February, shortly after the February 1987 formation of the Lawyers’ Network for Victim Relief from Spiritual Sales (Higaibenren), the predecessor of Zenkoku Benren, Yamaguchi stated in Shakai Shinpo:

“Ultimately, we want to pursue anti-social activities and demand that the Ministry of Education revoke religious corporation authorization.”

Astonishingly, less than one month after Higaibenren was established, he was already saying they would demand the revocation of the Unification Church’s status as a religious corporation. By any measure, this is not a purely victim-relief activity. It is an ideologically driven political struggle aimed at crushing forces that seek to enact an anti-espionage law. Ordinary people know nothing about this. That was another reason I very much wanted to write this book.

‒ It is also largely unknown that more than half of the former believers who are pursuing the church as “victims” were forcibly converted through illegal abduction and confinement.

As I wrote in the chapter “The Ministry of Education’s Suppression of Speech”, the linkage ‒ after a short time lag ‒ between abduction and confinement on the one hand and refund lawsuits on the other is immediately obvious if you look at the graph showing the relationship between the number of abduction victims and the number of plaintiffs.

If abduction and confinement had somehow been eradicated, those people would not have emerged. More than half of the “victims” interviewed by the Ministry of Education were people who had left the church after being abducted and confined. Ultimately, this means that abduction and confinement have a very deep causal relationship with the Tokyo District Court’s decision ordering dissolution.

‒ After FNN (the Fuji Television Network) reported this graph as a scoop, it is said that FNN executives were summoned to the Ministry of Education and reporters were temporarily barred from entering the ministry.

When FNN reported it, they did not properly explain the graph. So I think viewers probably did not really understand what it meant. Tetsuo Goda (合田哲雄), Deputy Commissioner of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, reportedly said,

“Do not air the church’s one-sided claims!”

But this may have been the first time the four characters meaning “abduction and confinement” appeared in a standard news broadcast. That must have touched a nerve with Deputy Commissioner Goda.

‒ The Ministry of Education should, as an administrative body, be responsible for guaranteeing freedom of religion.

What proved to be the decisive move against the religious organization in the developments after the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (安倍晋三) was a series of statements by former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (岸田文雄). Before the incident, the Religious Affairs Division of the Ministry of Education (MEXT) functioned as a safeguard against Zenkoku Benren’s demands for a dissolution order, because it was an agency tasked with protecting freedom of religion.

However, as if “crossing the Rubicon”, the ministry shifted after Kishida’s remarks. From that point on, in line with the prime minister’s intentions, the Ministry of Education (MEXT) laid down the tracks and barreled ahead with the goal of dissolving the Family Federation.

See also part 2: A Dissolution Built on Fabrications, Speculation

See also Rising Religious Persecution in SKorea, Japan

See also Expert: “Is Dissolution Framework Constitutional?”

See also: Selective Justice: Special Law Against One Faith

See also Upbringing No Excuse as Abe Assassin Gets Life

See also Apartment Turned Prison: 12 Years to Break Faith

Featured image above: Masumi Fukuda (福田 ますみ) ‒ Born in 1956 in Yokohama City. Nonfiction writer. Winner of the 6th Shincho Documentary Award for Fabrication: The Truth Behind the Fukuoka “Murderous Teacher” Case (Shinchosha). In 2024, she received the U.S. Wilbur Award, which is given for outstanding reporting on religion. Her other works include Russia, the Assassination State: Pursuing the Journalists Who Were Silenced (Shinchosha) and The True Face of Political Correctness (Hojo-sha). Photo: Sekai Nippo

[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.]

Related to system of faith-breaking: Lawfare: State Uses Legal System in War on Faith

Also related to system of faith-breaking: MEXT’s Legal Spin and “Dissolution at All Costs”

Also related to system of faith-breaking: UN Report: Japan’s Lawfare Against Faith Minority

And also related to system of faith-breaking: Protesting No Transparency in Closed-Door Trial

More, related to system of faith-breaking: Dangerous Flaws in Dissolution Order Decried

Also related to system of faith-breaking: “Lawyers Lying and Shaming Japan” for 50 Years

And also related to system of faith-breaking: Japan Following the Way of China

And also related to system of faith-breaking: Japan’s Dissolution Case Echoes China’s Playbook

More, related to system of faith-breaking: Media/Legal Expert: Communism Behind Persecution

And more, related to system of faith-breaking: Militant Lawyers Dictate Government Policy

More, related to system of faith-breaking: Collusion to Rob Minority of Its Rights

And more, related to system of faith-breaking: State and Media Creating “Today’s Non-Citizens”

Still more, related to system of faith-breaking: Japan Copying China: State Seizure of Churches

And still more, related to system of faith-breaking: 12 Religious Freedom NGOs Denouncing Japan

More, related to system of faith-breaking: 4300 Abductions and Forcible Detentions

And more, related to system of faith-breaking: Japan: Families Fear for Graves of Loved Ones

Yet more, related to system of faith-breaking: Lawyers Manipulating, Coercing, Lying

Also related to system of faith-breaking: Kishida Follows Anti-Family Federation Minister

Also related to system of faith-breaking: Militant Lawyers Dictate Government Policy

Still more, related to system of faith-breaking: Malicious One-Sided Government Source Selection

Yet more, related to system of faith-breaking: Kishida’s Self-Defeating Populist Decisions

And still more, related to system of faith-breaking: Japan Urged to Make U-Turn

And yet more, related to system of faith-breaking: Dangerous Precedent to Crush Religions

Even more, related to system of faith-breaking: Japan Following the Way of China

Yet more, related to system of faith-breaking: Japanese Communists’ Final War

Still more, related to system of faith-breaking: Political and Social Activism behind Oppression