States Weaponizing the Law in War on Faiths

The dangerous regional precedent of turning the law into an instrument of state-sponsored religious persecution

During an international Zoom conference hosted by the HJ International Graduate School for Peace and Public Leadership in New York on 24^th September 2026, distinguished experts gathered to discuss contemporary threats to religious freedom. Under the theme “Honoring Constitution Day – Contemporary Threats to Religious Freedom: The Significance of the 1st Amendment”, presenters highlighted how democratic nations are increasingly failing to protect religious minorities. Although the presentations ranged widely, several observations were particularly relevant to the systematic, state-backed persecution currently faced by the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (formerly the Unification Church) and its leader, Dr. Hak Ja Han, in both Japan and South Korea.

See also Voltaire’s Warning for Japan and South Korea

See also The Rome Statute: Safeguarding Religious Freedom?

See also Mother Han’s Case Echoing a 1955 Religious Trial

See also 1955 Revisited: Lessons for South Korea Today

See also No Bail Ruling: Mother Han’s Health at Stake

The Ideological Roots and Weaponization of “Brainwashing”

Dr. Massimo Introvigne a leading scholar on new religious movements and prominent activist for religious freedom, traced the modern targeting of religious minorities back to pseudo-scientific theories of “brainwashing” [See editor’s note 1 below] and “coercive persuasion”. Originally pushed by Marxist and secularist groups to attack all religions, these concepts were eventually narrowed down to target unpopular minority groups labeled as “cults”.

Totalitarian states like China historically weaponized these ideas, exporting them into democratic Asian neighbors through left-wing legal networks and communist parties.

While Western courts – such as the U.S. federal courts in the landmark 1990 Fishman decision – historically rejected brainwashing [See editor’s note 1 below] as unscientific nonsense akin to a “flat earth” theory, the concept is now being reintroduced into democratic legal systems through legal “Trojan horses”. These modern variations include the concepts of “coercive control” and “spiritual abuse”, which are being aggressively utilized by state actors to dismantle the Family Federation.

State Persecution and “Spiritual Abuse” Legislation in Japan

The crisis for the Family Federation escalated drastically in Japan following the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022. The assassin’s grievances regarding his mother’s financial donations to the Family Federation were seized upon by the Japanese Communist Party and anti-religious hostile actors. Backed by ideological pressure from China, this culminated in a severe state-backed crackdown.

A central mechanism of this persecution is Japan’s newly passed legislation criminalizing the “spiritual abuse” of children (defined broadly to include minors up to age 18). Under the guise of child protection, the law relies on highly ambiguous definitions of psychological coercion. It penalizes standard religious practices, such as counseling family members against abortion, advising against certain holiday celebrations, or engaging in traditional confessions.

As Dr. Michael Jenkins, current president of the Universal Peace Federation of North America, noted, the legal hostility against the Japanese Family Federation has reached unprecedented heights. Japanese authorities have pushed to dissolve the religious corporation entirely. Shockingly, the legal rationale used by Japanese bodies states that even if no ongoing wrongdoing is found, the religious organization’s foundational theological teachings imply they might commit violations in the future. This directly criminalizes religious doctrines under the assumption that faith equals automatic mind control [See editor’s note 2 below].

The “Church Dissolution Bill” in South Korea

The state-sponsored hostility in Japan has directly spilled over into South Korea, creating a dangerous regional precedent. Dr. Jenkins revealed that the Chinese Communist Party’s “anti-heresy” committee (Jin Zhao) has actively hosted meetings in Seoul with Korean and Japanese representatives to demonstrate how states can weaponize public distrust to eliminate persecuted religious organizations.

This transnational pressure has heavily influenced South Korean politics. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung instructed his Minister of Legislative and Judicial Affairs to study Japan’s legal tactics specifically to replicate them against domestic churches. This has resulted in a highly controversial piece of legislation currently sitting before the National Assembly’s Judiciary and Legislative Committee, officially designated as Civil Code 221-5932, but widely dubbed the “Church Dissolution Bill”.

This bill utilizes vague legal terminology to mandate the complete dissolution and asset seizure of any church or nonprofit organization that becomes vaguely “involved in politics”. Crucially, it dictates that if a church leader is convicted of any crime, the entire religious body can be permanently shut down and its properties confiscated by the state. Under this highly politicized climate, prominent leaders like Dr. Hak Ja Han face intense judicial jeopardy, with other elderly religious figures already being detained long-term and sentenced for non-violent electoral infractions.

The Global Stakes and the Need for Vigilance

The presenters emphasized that the suppression of the Family Federation is not an isolated incident, but a blueprint for global authoritarian encroachment. Former U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, explained that authoritarian regimes systematically target religious groups because people of faith answer to a higher moral authority than the state – a reality that totalitarian regimes find intolerable.

When democratic nations like Japan and South Korea adopt these repressive legal frameworks, they provide a dangerous validation for authoritarianism worldwide. For instance, countries like Rwanda have already cited Japan’s restrictive religious policies as a justification for shutting down thousands of local churches. The conference concluded with a stark reminder: the protection of the soul’s right to freedom requires eternal vigilance, and the weaponization of the law against the Family Federation threatens the foundational liberties of all spiritual communities globally.

See also Voltaire’s Warning for Japan and South Korea

See also The Rome Statute: Safeguarding Religious Freedom?

See also Mother Han’s Case Echoing a 1955 Religious Trial

See also 1955 Revisited: Lessons for South Korea Today

See also No Bail Ruling: Mother Han’s Health at Stake

Text: Knut Holdhus, editor

Featured image above: The speakers at the HJI online conference on 24th September 2026 on threats to religious freedom: From left to right, Dr. Michael Jenkins, former US ambassador Sam Brownback, Dr. Massimo Introvigne. Screenshots.

[Editor’s note 1: “Brainwashing” was a popular term that emerged during the early Cold War to explain why some prisoners of war and political detainees appeared to adopt beliefs favored by their captors. The idea suggested that powerful psychological techniques could erase a person’s existing beliefs and replace them with new ones against their will, almost like reprogramming a machine.

Over time, however, the concept was largely discarded by mainstream psychology and cognitive science as a scientific explanation of persuasion or belief change. Researchers found little evidence for such a process, that any special, unique process existed that could fundamentally override human autonomy and completely remake a person’s personality or convictions.

Studies in psychology, sociology, and psychiatry showed that belief change is usually gradual, variable, and dependent on many factors: social pressure, isolation, coercion, rewards, threats, conformity, identity, and existing motivations. People can certainly be influenced, manipulated, indoctrinated, or coerced, but there is no scientifically demonstrated mechanism that allows a person’s mind to be completely overwritten in the dramatic way implied by “brainwashing”.

The concept came under especially heavy criticism in the 1970s–1990s during debates about new religious movements – by anti-religious activists and others often called “cults”. Some experts testified that members had been brainwashed, while other scholars argued that the theory lacked clear definitions, reliable measurements, falsifiable predictions, and strong empirical support. Courts increasingly viewed brainwashing testimony skeptically because it often could not meet scientific standards of evidence.

A major problem was that “brainwashing” lacked a clear, measurable definition. Different writers used it to describe very different phenomena, from prisoner interrogation to religious conversion to participation in controversial groups. Because it could not be reliably operationalized or tested, it failed to meet basic scientific standards. Studies of prisoners of war and members of new religious movements showed that apparent ideological conversions were often temporary, strategic, situational, or reversible rather than evidence of a mysterious mind-control process.

By the 1970s and 1980s, many psychologists, sociologists, and legal scholars concluded that brainwashing functioned more as a cultural and political metaphor than as a validated scientific theory. Courts also became increasingly skeptical of expert testimony claiming that members of new religious movements had been “brainwashed”. Today, scholars generally prefer more specific concepts – such as persuasion, coercive control, social influence, indoctrination, obedience, and group dynamics – rather than assuming the existence of a mysterious power that can completely rewrite a person’s beliefs.]

[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 Unification Church. Public outrage reignited scrutiny of NRMs, and politicians and journalists revived “mind-control” rhetoric to explain the Church’s 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.]

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