A Japanese court has ordered the dissolution of the controversial Unification Church linked to the 2022 assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe.
The church, formally called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, has long been accused by Japan’s government of coercive fundraising tactics and cult-like behaviour, including manipulative recruitment and unlawful adoption practices.
The church said it was considering an immediate appeal of the order to revoke its legal status. It denounced the verdict as “unfair” and said the decision marked a major shakeup for religions across Japan.
“Since the assassination of former prime minister Abe, there has been a lot of misinformation circulating in the media and social media about our organisation,” it said in a statement.
“We sincerely ask that the general public does not discriminate against our congregation.”
The Tokyo District Court’s order to revoke its status will end the Unification Church’s tax-exempt privilege in Japan and force it to liquidate its assets.
The church, popularly known as “Moonies”, came under renewed scrutiny after an investigation into Abe’s assassination.
The man who shot Abe at a campaign rally on 8 July 2022 allegedly told police his actions were motivated by the former prime minister’s links to the church. He claimed that the church had bankrupted his family due to his mother’s excessive donations.
The assassination shocked Japan, a country with some of the world’s strictest gun control laws and low rates of political violence.
Subsequent investigations found longstanding ties between the church and Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic Party, which Abe led for years, triggering public outrage.
Abe appeared at events organised by church affiliates. In a video shown on a big screen at the meeting of Universal Peace Federation, a church affiliate, Abe praised its work towards peace on the Korean peninsula and focus on family values. An emphasis on traditional, paternalistic family systems was one of Abe’s key positions.
In 2023, the Japanese education ministry asked the Tokyo court to dissolve the church, accusing it of trying to steer its followers using manipulative tactics, making them buy expensive goods and donating beyond their financial ability, and causing fear and harm to them and their families.
After a year and a half of hearings behind closed doors, presiding judge Kenya Suzuki said “the order was necessary and inevitable” even if the court considered the right to freedom of religion.
“There were damages on an unprecedentedly large scale,” Mr Suzuki said.
The ministry submitted nearly 5,000 documents and pieces of evidence to the court based on interviews with over 170 people.
The Unification Church was founded in South Korea in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon. Moon claimed to have had a vision of Jesus as a teenager, instructing him to complete his “unfinished work”.
The church’s core text, the Divine Principle, outlines its beliefs in God, human history and salvation.
Moon, who declared himself the Messiah in 1992, was convicted of tax evasion in the US in 1982 and served 13 months in prison.
However, over the years, he built relationships with conservative world leaders, including US president Donald Trump and former presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush.
Moon also had ties to North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung, the late grandfather of current ruler Kim Jong Un.
The Unification Church is the first religious group in Japan to face a revocation order under civil law. Two other groups have lost their status previously but due to criminal cases – Aum Shinrikyo, which carried out the Tokyo subway sarin attack, and Myokakuji, whose leaders were convicted of fraud.
Additional reporting by agencies.
