For 12 Years They Took My Freedom, Not My Faith

My freedom was taken away, but my faith and prayers remained a source of strength through 12 long years of confinement

Part 5 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.

Continued from part 1: Apartment Turned Prison: 12 Years to Break Faith

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

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

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

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

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

Continued in part 8: 12 Years Locked Up in Flat, Justice at Last

I do not simply view my family as perpetrators.

Originally, my family was an entirely ordinary family. They did not begin doing this because they wanted to hurt me.

In fact, the method of abduction and confinement was not something my family had devised themselves. There was a structure in which people involved in faith-breaking (deprogramming) [See editor’s note below] would approach families who wanted their relatives to leave the Unification Church, teach them how to abduct and confine the believer, and then encourage the family to carry it out.

My family wanted to save me and make me happy. They became involved in this approach because they believed they were doing what was best for me.

So, in a sense, the families who were led into using such methods were also victims – not only the believers who were subjected to confinement.

Of course, that does not justify depriving someone of their freedom or pressuring them to abandon their faith.

At the root of the problem were the faith-breakers who taught families these methods of abduction and confinement and led them toward coercive faith-breaking [See editor’s note below]</span.

Around that time, there was one particular statement that deeply wounded me. My father died of cancer while I was confined. Even regarding my father’s death, faith-breaker Takashi Miyamura (宮村峻) said to me,

“You killed your father.”

I strongly protested. I said,

“If I killed my father, then take me to the police right now. Go ahead. Take me there.”

Even the grief of losing my father was being used as a weapon to try to destroy my faith.

Please imagine what this was like. If you are in a free environment, you can simply leave. But I had been deprived of the freedom even to go outside.

Inside a locked room from which there was no escape, one person was surrounded by many others.

Even when I said I did not want this, it did not stop. Even when I asked them to let me out, they would not.

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

My own family joined together in pressuring me to abandon my faith.

And unless I accepted the conclusion they demanded, I had no idea when this life would end.

● The pain of having my freedom taken away.

● The pain of having my faith trampled upon.

● And the pain of seeing my relationship with the family I loved being destroyed.

All of these things accumulated in my heart day after day. I became terrified that if this continued, both my mind and my faith would be destroyed. At times, I was driven to the point where I wanted to die.

Lying in bed, I prayed to God:

“Heavenly Father, I am sorry. I have reached my limit. I cannot endure any more. Please take me to the spirit world tomorrow without allowing me to wake up.”

But there was something that protected my heart at the very last moment. It was prayer and God’s word.

After my first period of confinement, I had resolved to build within myself a faith that could never be destroyed. To prepare myself, I memorized Father Moon‘s words concerning difficult and suffering situations.

For example, there is a passage in which he essentially says:

“Throughout history, pioneers have always been persecuted. The saints have also always been persecuted.

If you look only at that, it appears that they all ended up defeated. But they were never truly defeated. They are destined ultimately to achieve victory. This is God‘s strategy.”

And especially when things became extremely difficult, I remembered Father Moon‘s life course.

Even in hellish circumstances, he thought not about himself but about God, and sought to comfort God. I tried to make that heart my example.

When I was reaching my physical and psychological limits, I deliberately tried not to focus on myself, but instead to think about God, who I believed was suffering even more than I was. I prayed:

“God, please look upon me. No matter how difficult the situation becomes, I will never betray You. I will surely remain faithful and fulfill my responsibility.”

When I prayed that way, my heart became peaceful and warm. Gradually, I felt my whole body becoming warm, and tears began to flow.

Many times, I experienced something that felt as though God were embracing me and saying through tears, “My beloved son.”

The wounds inflicted by the insults, slander, and verbal abuse I was experiencing were healed in my heart, and I felt spiritual strength being poured into me.

Through that strength from God, I was able to stand and continue fighting through the seemingly endless years of confinement.

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

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

Continued in part 8: 12 Years Locked Up in Flat, Justice at Last

Continued from part 1: Apartment Turned Prison: 12 Years to Break Faith

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

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

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

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

Featured image above: Toru Goto praying desperately while he was locked up for more than 12 years. Illustration: ChatGPT, 28^th September 2026. 

[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.]

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