Adopted in record time, Saturday, December 10, by the Japanese Parliament, the law aimed at better regulating donations to organizations, religious or not, is struggling to achieve unanimity. The text was written following the assassination in July, by the son of a follower ruined by the Unification Church – today, Federation of Families for World Peace and Unification (FFPUM) , known as the Moon Sect – of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (1954-2022). It was approved just five days after it was submitted to Parliament.
Supervising the activities of structures that collect donations or carry out “spiritual sales”, including non-profit organizations and schools, the law targets potential pressures. The text defines certain criteria for establishing the offence, such as taking advantage of the state of weakness of the targeted persons and that of arousing fears by affirming that a donation is “essential” to avoid difficult situations. Penalties can be up to one year in prison or a fine of 1 million yen [près de 7 000 euros].
The law also gives the families of the followers the right to cancel the donations, according to the principle of the “right of subrogation of the creditor” provided for by the civil code. This provision can only be applied when the followers themselves do not have the financial means to act.
The government pushed for the rapid adoption of the text. The question of the Moon sect weakens the administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, because of revelations about the old links between at least 146 parliamentarians and 334 local elected officials of the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD, in power) and the movement. Several ministers had to resign. Mr. Kishida’s support rate does not exceed 35%, according to a December 9 poll by the Kyodo agency.
The author of the shots against Mr. Abe, Tetsuya Yamagami, had explained his action by the ruin of his mother, caused by massive donations to the Moon sect, and by the link between Mr. Abe and the religious movement created in 1954 in South Korea by Moon Sun-myung (1920-2012), but very established in Japan, from where he drew most of his resources. For the sect, donations were presented as a means of “free the ancestors”. Teams passed by the followers to sell them products such as ginseng, statues, even Bibles autographed by the guru, at exorbitant prices. The greater the number of ancestors to be “liberated”, the greater the donation had to be.
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