Instead of rallying behind Abe, the Japanese people followed the assassin’s wishes and turned their attention to longstanding but little-discussed relations between the ruling party and the Mooneys. Tetsuya Yamagami told police he initially planned to assassinate Hak Ja Han Moon, the head of the church, which is known for organizing mass weddings and supporting right-wing politicians around the world, but then decided to target Abe. Before shooting Abe, he wrote a letter to a freelance journalist – obtained by The Daily Beast – explaining that he assassinated Abe to expose the deep ties between Japan’s ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Unification Church . If that was his twisted goal, he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. The phrase, “After all, the Unification Church and the LDP are one and the same” is now a trend in Japan. The Mainichi newspaper published an editorial on July 27, “LDP must clear ties with Unification Church.” The newspaper wrote: “Why did the Japanese government allow the Unification Church to change its name?… It is only natural that the Diet and the press should try to clarify the real situation. Above all, the LDP should investigate its long history [with the group] explain it to the audience and liquidate the relationship.” Not only in print and online, but in everyday conversations, Church-LDP ties continue to emerge. Manabu Yanagi, a retired police detective in the city of Nikko in Tochigi Prefecture, told The Daily Beast, “The news is shocking. The ties between an anti-social rogue group and Japan’s ruling party are disturbing. It needs to be made clear what exactly those links were.” While the Japanese media at first refused to print the cult’s name, they are now going all out – detailing the links between the cult group, Abe, and his party in incredible detail. The backlash is so intense that many are now openly calling for the cancellation of Abe’s state funeral planned for this fall. “I oppose state funeral for Shinzo Abe” trended on Twitter for a week. A petition opposing taxpayer money being spent on a lavish national funeral for Abe has already gathered 67,000 signatures. He points to his connections to the cult as a reason that disqualifies him for the honor.

Meet the Unification Church

The Unification Church, which now officially calls itself the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, has a long history of problematic and “anti-social” activities. A Korean religious leader named Reverend Sun Myung Moon founded the Unification Church in 1954. According to Moon, Jesus sent him to save families and achieve world peace and fight godless communism. His followers are commonly referred to as “Moonies”. They became known for mass group marriages and various schemes to extort large financial donations from their members. They were also accused of using brainwashing techniques to recruit and retain followers. In Japan, they capitalized on the traditions of ancestor worship and convinced followers to spend large sums to save their loved ones from hell by purchasing expensive “spiritual” items. They tried to change their image in the late eighties and nineties by establishing front companies, think tanks and related organizations. They were also media savvy. Moon founded the conservative Washington Times in May 1982, and the paper is reportedly still affiliated with the organization even after Moon’s death in 2012. “The heinous act was committed in an attempt to get his revenge on the Church.” — Professor Koichi Nakano The Unification Church under various names and guises has not only cultivated strong ties with Japanese politicians, especially the Liberal Democratic Party, but has also managed to forge close ties with the Republican Party in the US, ties that have intensified under Donald Trump. One of Reverend Moon’s sons, Hyung Jin “Sean” Moon, created a splinter group, Rod of Iron Ministries, that worships with AR-15s and strongly supports Donald Trump. Sun Moon and members of the church were not only allegedly present at the January 6 uprising, but are apparently connected to some MAGA magnates. Steve Bannon participated in the group’s Freedom Festival last October. Writing for The Daily Beast, cult expert and former Unificationist Steve Hassan explained the religion this way: “In the Moonies, we were told we were heavenly soldiers engaged in a great struggle to take over the world behind the forces of Satan. , which included godless communism and anthropocentric Western democracy. Our ultimate goal was to replace these godless anthropocentric forms of government with a God-centered theocracy, under Moon’s leadership.”

Made in Korea, Sold in Japan

The Unification Church was hugely successful in Japan, and 70 percent or more of its income was said to come from Japanese nationals. Billions of yen have been funneled from Japan to the church over the past decade, according to an Upper House lawmaker. The watchdog group, The National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales, has been tracking the Unification Church since the late 1980s. It advocates for victims of the Church and cults. They claimed at a press conference on July 12 that the confirmed financial suffering associated with the group until 2021 exceeded 123.7 billion yen ($899.2 million). The number represents only a fraction of the total, they say. The Network’s representatives also noted that between 2005 and 2010, Japanese police handled 13 criminal cases of selling goods in connection with soliciting donations, involving the church, and that more than thirty members of the Unification Church were arrested and detained. Numerous lawsuits against the Church have resulted in compensation being paid to victims of predatory practices. Couples from around the world participate in a mass wedding ceremony at the CheongShim Peace World Center in Gapyeong, South Korea. 15,000 South Korean and foreign couples exchanged or reaffirmed their wedding vows at the Unification Church’s mass wedding organized by Hak Ja Han Moon, wife of the late Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the controversial founder of the Unification Church.

Photo by NurPhoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images

The Unification Church of Japan has said publicly that Yamagami’s mother was a member, but insists that the days of soliciting donations in problematic ways are over. The Unification Church has decided to distance itself from the various entities under its control in Japan by changing its name under the Abe administration and establishing a series of seemingly unrelated think tanks and nonprofits that critics call “shell companies.” “ As the Network points out, the expansion of the Unification Church is due in part to its ties to politicians. Shinzo Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, forged strong alliances with the group. Kishi was arrested as a war criminal in 1945, but was later released and entered the CIA payroll. He and notorious political fixer and yakuza associate Yoshio Kodama created the Liberal Democratic Party that has ruled Japan almost continuously since the 1950s. Kishi later became prime minister. He was instrumental in forming the Church’s political arm, the International Federation for Victory over Communism in the 1960s. Kissey and Moon became so close that when Moon was jailed for tax evasion in the United States, Kissey wrote to President Ronald Reagan asking to be released early. Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, left, and Richard Nixon in Washington on January 20, 1960.

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Kishi’s son and Abe’s father, Shintaro Abe, maintained ties to the group, and Shinzo Abe continued the practice — ignoring warnings that the group was causing massive social problems in Japan. The National Network said they had repeatedly warned Abe to sever ties with the church, pointing out that he had given credence to their “predatory and fraudulent activities”. The ties between Abe and the group were not superficial. In 2005 and 2006, while a lawmaker, Abe sent congratulatory messages at events co-organized by the World Peace Federation, which has strong ties to the Unification Church. According to materials from the National Network and public documents, in 2010 and 2012, Abe attended meetings of the Institute for Global Strategy, another organization allegedly linked to the Church. In 2011, he and other conservatives published a one-page opinion ad in the Washington Times denying Japanese war crimes. In 2013, under Abe, despite opposition within the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, the organization was allowed to change its name – thus obscuring its troubled past. In 2016, Abe invited the president of the Japanese branch of the Unification Church to the prime minister’s residence. In September 2021, Abe sent a video message at an event organized by the World Peace Federation. He praised the church’s leaders and its “family values.” But Abe wasn’t alone, Donald Trump, Abe’s golfing buddy and ideologue, also sent out a video praising the church leaders. Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon Officiate at Family Federation for World Peace and Blessing of Unification 98 Marriage and Marriage Rededication Ceremony. Over 2000 couples were married at Madison Square Garden

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After Abe’s video message last September, the National Network wrote to him again asking him to cease and desist from supporting the church and its affiliated organizations. It was…