Arab News Japan

TOKYO: In an extraordinary press conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan (FCCJ) on Friday, the parents of a woman speaking out against the Unification Church sent a message to the Club to stop the press conference by saying the speaker was mentally disturbed.

The parents sent a message via the Unification Church to have the press conference stopped “immediately” as the woman recounted a list of horrific actions taken by the Church and her parents. The Unification Church threatened legal action against the FCCJ.

A woman who asked not to be named, said she wanted to appear at the FCCJ to let the world know the suffering she and others trapped within the cult have endured and continue to endure.

In an hour of spellbinding testimony, she recalled how she was brainwashed, put in a mental hospital and had her money stolen by her parents to hand over to the Unification Church.

The Unification Church has been under pressure in Japan since the son of a follower of the cult shot and killed former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo in July. It has since been revealed that many politicians in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party have had close ties to the cult and the woman said that the Church has been protected by these close relationships.

The woman was raised as a “second generation believer” of the cult as both her parents were heavily involved in Unification Church activities. She was told she would be “eternally damned in Hell” if she disobeyed the cult’s rules. 

“The Church believes in a joint responsibility in a family and if everyone in a family doesn’t believe or follow its rules they say they will all go to Hell,” she said. She added that the treatment of children within the cult amounted to child abuse.

She said she was bullied due to poverty because her parents gave the cult all the family’s money and she suffered sexual harassment from a cult official at a spiritual retreat in Korea that she was forced to attend to rid herself of an “evil spirit.”

The woman said many followers were suffering from psychological stress and she herself suffered a breakdown, leading to her defection from the cult and separation from her parents. She said that there have been around 31,000 complaints against the cult in Japan and she wants the government and local authorities to take action against the cult.

 “We need laws to protect children who are being abused by this,” she said. “We need an organization that puts children first to protect them from this excessive behavior.”