Japanese Court Assumes the Role of Inquisitor

From judge to inquisitor: By passing judgment on religious doctrine, Japan’s dissolution case crossed a long-observed legal boundary in the campaign to eradicate the Family Federation

Part 2 of a speech given by Japanese investigative journalist and prize-winning author Masumi Fukuda (福田ますみ) at a press conference on the theme “Japan: The Hidden Story Behind the Eradication of a Religion”, held at the Brussels Press Club in Brussels, Belgium on 29^th June 2026, organized by Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF), an independent non-profit NGO. Translated from the transcription of the original Japanese, slightly edited.

Continued from part 1: The Hidden Story Japan Doesn’t Want You to Hear

Continued in part 3: Japan: The Political Origins of Smear Campaign

Continued in part 4: This Is About More Than One Religion

Why, then, was the Unification Church [See editor’s note 1 below] ordered to dissolve?

The answer is surprising: primarily because of disputes over donations.

See also Using Abe’s Assassination Against Unificationism

See also Media Turning Public Opinion Against a Minority

Donations are indispensable to any religious organization. However, Japanese courts have ruled that when a religious organization accepts donations that exceed what society considers reasonable, those donations may be deemed unlawful.

In earlier court cases, the typical reasoning was that people had been induced to donate through fear – for example, by being told that they or their ancestors would suffer misfortune or go to hell unless they made donations. In other words, the courts found that they had been pressured or intimidated into giving money.

Over the years, many civil lawsuits were filed against the Unification Church [See editor’s note 1 below], and the church lost many of them. I will explain later why so many lawsuits were brought.

I will not go into the details of those cases today, but in many instances the plaintiffs prevailed despite lacking convincing evidence. In my view, a series of unjust judgments accumulated over time.

I believe this happened because almost none of Japan’s judges have any religious faith, and many tend to view new religious movements such as the Unification Church [See editor’s note 1 below] through the lens of prejudice, seeing them simply as cults. It may also be that, given the overwhelmingly negative media coverage, judges feared that ruling in favor of the church [See editor’s note 1 below] would damage public confidence in the courts.

More recently, the courts have gone even further. They have ruled that believers may sincerely think they donated of their own free will, yet were actually subjected to improper psychological influence without realizing it, making the donations unlawful.

This is an extraordinary conclusion. It comes very close to saying that having religious faith is itself a form of victimization. In effect, it amounts to recognizing the controversial theory of “mind control” [See editor’s note 2 below].

In addition to these civil judgments, something even more remarkable occurred in the dissolution proceedings.

The court treated settlements and out-of-court agreements between the church and former members as evidence that the church [See editor’s note 1 below] had committed unlawful acts. On that basis, the court issued the dissolution order.

In other words, the outcomes of civil disputes – which were simply a means of resolving disagreements over donations between the church [See editor’s note 1 below] and former members – were used as the legal foundation for dissolving the entire religious organization.

Furthermore, in the dissolution case, the court concluded, without any concrete evidence, that the church [See editor’s note 1 below] would probably continue causing problems related to large donations in the future.

The court even went so far as to examine the church‘s religious doctrines and teachings, concluding that because it was an undesirable religion, there was little prospect that it would reform itself.

Until now, this would have been unthinkable in Japan. Japanese courts have traditionally regarded it as taboo to pass judgment on the content of religious doctrine. It was inconceivable that a court would evaluate whether a religion’s teachings were good or bad.

The court, in effect, assumed the role of an inquisitor.

For these reasons, I believe the dissolution order is entirely unjust.

It cannot be regarded as a fair judgment based on strict evidentiary standards, because the existence of unlawful conduct was never adequately established.

It is also true that this one-sided decision was made against the backdrop of years of highly biased media coverage portraying the Unification Church [See editor’s note below] as nothing more than a cult.

How did things reach this point?

Continued in part 3: Japan: The Political Origins of Smear Campaign

Continued in part 4: This Is About More Than One Religion

Continued from part 1: The Hidden Story Japan Doesn’t Want You to Hear

See also Using Abe’s Assassination Against Unificationism

See also Media Turning Public Opinion Against a Minority

Featured image above: Japanese judiciary assuming the role of inquisitor. Illustration: ChatGPT, 2^nd July 2026.

[Editor’s note 1: Although Masumi Fukuda uses the name “Unification Church” and also the word “church”, please be aware that the Unification Church in Japan in 2015 changed its name to Family Federation for World peace and Unification.]

[Editor’s note 2: In Japan, the “mind-control” myth has been a powerful tool used to stigmatize and suppress new religious movements (NRMs), particularly since the 1980s. The concept suggests that NRMs manipulate or “brainwash” their followers, depriving them of free will and rational thought. This narrative gained traction after the 1995 Aum Shinrikyō sarin gas attack, when public fear of dangerous cults intensified. Although Aum was an extreme and violent exception, the incident cast suspicion on all NRMs, allowing critics, media, and the government to label diverse groups as manipulative or psychologically coercive.

The “mind-control” myth serves multiple social and political functions. It simplifies complex questions of belief, making it easier to portray converts as victims rather than as individuals exercising spiritual agency. This framing justifies legal and social intervention, including the coercive “deprogramming” of believers – sometimes involving confinement or psychological pressure to force renunciation of faith. Lawyers, ex-member groups, and certain media outlets have used the idea of mind control to construct NRMs as threats to family stability and national order, reinforcing social conformity and Japan’s preference for established, non-controversial religions such as Buddhism and Shinto.

In recent years, the myth resurfaced following the 2022 assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose attacker cited resentment toward the Family Federation. A public outrage largely created by media reignited scrutiny of NRMs, and politicians and journalists revived “mind-control” rhetoric to explain fundraising and recruitment practices. Critics argue that this framing discourages genuine religious tolerance and critical examination of Japan’s restrictive religious climate. Overall, the “mind-control” myth functions less as a scientific or psychological concept and more as a moral panic – a cultural weapon used to delegitimize minority faiths and to reaffirm mainstream social norms about religion, obedience, and the boundaries of acceptable belief.]

Related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Lawfare: State Uses Legal System in War on Faith

More, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Scholar Questions Secrecy in Dissolution Case

And more, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Shocked Author: “Japan Ignores Basics of Justice”

Still more, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Legal Inconsistencies A Blow to Democracy

Even more, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Japan: Court Accused of Using Speculation

Also related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: MEXT’s Legal Spin and “Dissolution at All Costs”

Also related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: UN Report: Japan’s Lawfare Against Faith Minority

And also related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Protesting No Transparency in Closed-Door Trial

More, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Dangerous Flaws in Dissolution Order Decried

Also related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: “Lawyers Lying and Shaming Japan” for 50 Years

And also related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Japan Following the Way of China

And also related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Japan’s Dissolution Case Echoes China’s Playbook

More, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Media/Legal Expert: Communism Behind Persecution

And more, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Militant Lawyers Dictate Government Policy

More, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Collusion to Rob Minority of Its Rights

And more, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: State and Media Creating “Today’s Non-Citizens”

Still more, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Japan Copying China: State Seizure of Churches

And still more, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: 12 Religious Freedom NGOs Denouncing Japan

More, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: 4300 Abductions and Forcible Detentions

And more, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Japan: Families Fear for Graves of Loved Ones

Yet more, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Lawyers Manipulating, Coercing, Lying

Also related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Kishida Follows Anti-Family Federation Minister

Also related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Militant Lawyers Dictate Government Policy

Still more, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Malicious One-Sided Government Source Selection

And still more, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Japan Urged to Make U-Turn

And yet more, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Dangerous Precedent to Crush Religions

Even more, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Japan Following the Way of China

Yet more, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Japanese Communists’ Final War

Still more, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Political and Social Activism behind Oppression

Still more, related to court assuming the role of inquisitor: Dissolution Case: Rule of Law on Trial 4th March