Tetsuya Yamagami said he fired Abe because of the former prime minister’s ties to the Unification Church, also known as the Moonies, which he blamed for his family’s bankruptcy. Yamagami’s mother, a longtime church member, reportedly gave him ¥100 million [£618,000] in donations two decades ago, plunging their family into poverty. Three weeks after Abe’s death, details have emerged showing the church’s ties to politicians extend far beyond Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, angering voters and raising questions about his influence on the ruling Liberal Democrat’s policies. Party for gender equality and sexual diversity. Daily revelations that ruling and opposition lawmakers have courted the church — from attending events to recruiting its members for campaigns — in exchange for voter mobilization are rocking the current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, and the party. of a few weeks after their comfortable victory in the Upper House. elections. A poll published Sunday by the Kyodo news agency showed the approval rating for Kishida’s cabinet had fallen more than 12 percentage points to 51 percent in a matter of weeks. In addition, more than 53% of respondents said they opposed plans to hold a state funeral for Abe next month. In a letter to an anti-church blogger sent the day before the attack, Yamagami said his teenage years had been devastated by his mother’s “excessive spending, family turmoil and bankruptcy”, adding that her faith in her church Consolidation “my whole life was twisted”. . The letter, reported by Japanese media, accused Abe of being one of the church’s most influential supporters. During the questioning, he also reportedly blamed Abe’s grandfather and postwar prime minister, Nobusuke Kishi, for promoting the church in Japan in the 1960s as a countermeasure against communism and labor unions. The church, known for holding mass weddings in sports stadiums, was founded in South Korea in 1954 by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, a self-proclaimed messiah who preached new interpretations of the Bible and conservative values, including a strong anti-communist streak. In a video message last year to the World Peace Federation, an affiliate group, Abe praised the group for its focus on family values. “We should be wary of so-called social revolutionary movements with narrow-minded values,” he said. However, there is no evidence that Abe was a member of the church, which also had ties to other influential conservatives including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump. He found an immediate ally in Kishi, an alleged war criminal who was never charged, and whose social conservatism and right-wing politics mirrored those of Sun Myung Moon, whom he met near Mount Fuji in 1967 to discuss his anti-communist mission. These same shared values ​​sustain the current relationship between the church, whose members are often referred to as Moonies, and the LDP, according to Professor Mark Mullins, director of the Japanese Studies Center at the University of Auckland. “Conservative LDP politicians share some values ​​with the Unification church – their anti-communism and, more recently, family values, including opposition to same-sex marriage,” Mullins said. Photo of Shinzo Abe at the headquarters of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan in Tokyo. Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters While LDP lawmakers have often publicized their ties to conservative Shinto and other organizations, “it seems they didn’t want their association with the Unification church to be widely known,” Mullins added. “This is likely related to the church’s negative image due to complaints and lawsuits from former members about deceptive and high-pressure fundraising and recruitment activities.” Despite its Korean origins, the church has found a foothold in Japan, where it is said to have hundreds of thousands of members. The National Anti-Spirit Sales Lawyers Network, a group of 300 lawyers who represent people who claim they have suffered financial harm because of the church, accuses it of brainwashing believers into handing over huge amounts of money. The network has received 34,000 complaints about “missing” money totaling more than ¥120bn (£742m) since 1987 – a claim the church has vehemently denied. Lawyers have repeatedly asked Abe and other LDP lawmakers to stop sending congratulatory messages or appearing at events organized by the church, which now calls itself the Federation for World Peace and Unification, and its affiliates. They protested when Abe sent a telegram to a mass wedding at the Unification Church in 2006. “Members are under pressure every day to donate,” said Hiroshi Yamaguchi, one of the lawyers. “They tell you that karma is linked to money and that donations are the only way to save yourself. So you think you should do it.” He added: “It is not a simple religious organization … it has repeatedly emphasized the political and media importance of its activities, as well as its religious profile.” Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST LDP secretary-general Toshimitsu Motegi denied the party had institutional ties to the church, but said individual politicians should be “more careful” about their ties to the organization. They include Defense Minister – and Abe’s younger brother – Nobuo Kishi, who said members of the church had campaigned for him in the election. Satoshi Ninoyu, chairman of the National Public Safety Commission, admitted that he had helped organize an event for a church-affiliated group in 2018, while Education Minister Shinsuke Suematsu acknowledged that church members had paid to attend a fundraiser he hosted. Opposition politicians have also admitted to having ties to the church. “Abe’s assassination sheds light on the Unification church,” said Koichi Nakano, a politics professor at Sophia University in Tokyo. “The church’s relationship with right-wing factions of the LDP and its far-right policies could come under close scrutiny.”