RELIGIOUS SCHOLARS URGED TO INVESTIGATE HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN JAPAN

Posted on | September 17, 2010 | Comments Off

Speaking to the Center for Studies on New Religions (CENSUR), Dan Fefferman, President of the International Coalition for Religious Freedom, urged religious scholars from Europe and North America to conduct independent investigations into the kidnappings and forced de-conversions of Unification Church members in Japan.

CESNUR is the world’s premier gathering of scholars dedicated to the study of new religions and religious minorities. Approximately 150 scholars attended the conference, held in Turin, Italy at the University of Turin.

Fefferman reported to CESNUR attendees that 10 to 20 Unification Church members are currently victims of forced de-conversions each year in Japan. Two new victims were abducted against their will during the month of August, and several more church members remain missing.

While so-called “deprogramming” has been eliminated in the United States for nearly 20 years, there exists a well organized movement in Japan to kidnap Unification Church members and hold them against their will for months or even years at a time.

Most Japanese government officials turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses, and police refuse to investigate in part because there are not enough independent voices demanding justice.

“Scholars are not involved in Japan,” Fefferman told the CESNUR audience. “One of the reasons they are not involved is that they are taking a professional risk if they defend the Unification Church.”

Fefferman shared real life stories of deprogramming survivors who report beatings, threats with knives, humiliation and other psychological abuse, food depravation and rape. Despite the clear abuses of civil liberties, Japanese authorities refuse to intervene, calling religious affiliation a “family matter.”

In the United States, American citizens are being encouraged to sign a petition for Congress to hold hearings on Japan’s human rights violations. Specifically, the hearing would be held by the Tom Lantos Commission on Human Rights, co-chaired by Rep. James McGovern (D-MA) and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA).

FORMER SECRETARY GENERAL OF WESTERN EUROPEAN UNION SAYS JAPAN MUST SHOW RELIGIOUS RESPECT

Posted on | September 15, 2010 | Comments Off

At the recent European Leadership Conference and Fact Finding Tour to Japan, former Secretary General of the Western European Union Willem Frederik van Eekelen delivered a message encouraging the Japanese government to show respect for religious freedoms.

In his address to the Conference, Secretary van Eekelen complimented Japan’s human rights record but emphasized that the country fails to protect an individual’s right to freedom of religion. The Secretary was referencing the inhumane treatment of members of the Unification Church, who are subjected to forced conversions and domestic violence.

According to Secretary van Eekelen, the European and Japanese media do not report the human rights abuses in Japan of forced conversions because they do not oppose the practice.

According to the International Coalition for Religious Freedom, since 1966, more than 4,000 members of the Unification Church of Japan have been illegally confined in an attempt to make them leave the religion which they, as adults, freely chose to join.  Victims who escaped captivity report the use of force, prison-like conditions, beatings, starvation and even rape by their captors.

To maintain their respectable record on human rights, Secretary van Eekeln says Japan “must show respect for tradition on the one hand but also the limits put on it by individual freedom, by the freedom of religion and the possibility to profess those religions freely in each country by each citizen.”

About ICRF

The International Coalition for Religious Freedom is a non-profit, non-sectarian, educational organization dedicated to defending the religious freedom of all, regardless of creed, gender or ethnic origin.

HUMAN RIGHTS EXPERT SAYS JAPAN IN “COLLUSION” WITH CRIMINALS

Posted on | September 1, 2010 | Comments Off

At the recent European Leadership Conference and Fact Finding Tour to Japan, international human rights expert Aaron Rhodes discussed human rights abuses taking place in Japan.

Mr. Rhodes, the former Executive Director for the International Helsinki Federation of Human Rights, said the forced conversions and abductions of members of the Unification Church in Japan are in direct violation of United Nations human rights agreements.

“This is a nightmare,” Mr. Rhodes said of the Japanese government, “because public authorities are in collusion with criminals.”

Mr. Rhodes described the forced deprogramming of Unification Church members in Japan a violation of the most basic human rights, saying victims are coerced by physical force to change and present a confession.

Members of the audience were encouraged to contact the Asian Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions (APF) to pressure the Japanese government and embarrass them for their inactivity on abductions and forced conversions.

In 2009, the University of Chicago awarded Mr. Rhodes the prestigious Public Service Award.  He is regarded as one of the world’s leading human rights activists and is respected for his work on challenges in the Balkans, in Chechnya, and in Central Asia.

Mr. Rhodes rebuked Japan’s judicial system for not acting independently but with prejudice against religious minorities – a grave indictment against a liberal democracy with an otherwise good record on human rights.

NEW WEBSITE EXPOSES JAPAN’S HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

Posted on | September 1, 2010 | Comments Off

A new website launched today at www.StopJapanAbductions.org exposes human rights violations in Japan tied to abductions and forced conversions of religious minorities in Japan.

Forced conversions and abductions in Japan are a hidden human rights crime that denies people the fundamental right to worship freely.  The site, www.StopJapanAbductions.org will pursue justice on behalf of victims and hold the government of Japan accountable for their failure to prosecute these crimes against humanity.

The new website hosts news articles and videos of kidnap victims, as well as a petition, calling on the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission to hold Congressional hearings into Japan’s violation of international human rights treaties.

The European Leadership Conference and a Fact Finding Tour to Japan recently held a summit featuring world renowned human rights activists who attest to the abuses taking place in Japan.

According to human rights activist Aaron Rhodes: “This is a nightmare because public authorities [in Japan] are in collusion with criminals.”

After many interviews with victims of religious abductions and forced conversions in Japan, Peter Zoehrer, a journalist in Europe, concluded:

• Police in Japan often refuse to help victims of abduction and forced conversion
• In some cases, police in Japan cooperate with the perpetrators
• In several decades, not a single case has been prosecuted in Japan
• Japanese civil courts treat the problem as a “family matter”

The website petition calls on Congress to hold hearings before the end of the year about religious and human rights abuses taking place in Japan – one of America’s great trading partners.  These hearings should be held by the Tom Lantos Commission on Human Rights, co-chaired by Rep. James McGovern (D-MA) and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA).

Japan Overlooking Human Rights Abuses Claims International Media

Posted on | August 10, 2010 | Comments Off

TOKYO, (August 13, 2010) – The highest levels of the Japanese government are complicit in religious freedom and human rights abuses, according to recent testimony of Toru Goto, a Unification Church believer who was kidnapped and held against his will for 12 years in Japan.

According to the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, Mr. Goto has filed a lawsuit against members of his family, alleging kidnapping and torture, which left him confined for 12 years, deprived of food and proper nutrition and psychologically tortured in an attempt to make him renounce his personal faith.

In a letter addressed to the Diet of Japan and the Commissioners Reviewing the case of Mr. Goto, Rev. Cecil L. “Chip” Murray wrote, “I am very deeply concerned and dismayed to see that those who imprisoned Mr. Toru Goto are not being held accountable and that his case was simply dropped last December.”

Rev. Murray is Pastor Retired at First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles and Tansey Chair of Christian Ethics, Center for Religion, USC.

Over the past 40 years, thousands of followers of the Unification Church have been submitted to human rights abuses outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948 and signed by Japan.

Rev. Murray’s letter notes, “It has been brought to my attention that there are currently five Japanese citizens being held against their will: ages 60, 35, 30, 26 and 22.  Reportedly, one of these was just captured during this past month of March.”

Mr. Goto has filed a petition with the Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution attached to the Tokyo District Court to reconsider his case after it was dismissed earlier this year.  The Commission is expected to announce findings in the near future.

In a speech directed at religious freedom and human rights, United States President Barack Obama stated, “People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind and the heart and the soul. This tolerance is essential for religion to thrive, but it’s being challenged in many different ways.”

Organizations throughout America and Europe dedicated to religious freedom and human rights are closely watching Mr. Goto’s legal complaint in Japan.  Many are calling for the Japanese government to issue a formal apology for 40 years of neglect and shame.

Help by signing our petition telling the United States Congress to hold hearings on religious freedom and human rights violations and hold the country of Japan accountable.