Tokyo Resident Believed to be the Latest Kidnap Victim in Japan

A 30-year-old Japanese bank employee is believed to be the latest victim of kidnapping and forced confinement, according to reports from Japanese Unification Church officials. She is among five active Japanese church members believed to be held against their will by opponents of their faith since August of 2009.

Ms. Yoshiko Majima, a member of the Musashino Youth Branch of West Tokyo, went home to visit her parents in the Tochigi Prefecture on Feb. 7, 2010 and did not return to her job in Tokyo. She reportedly loved singing in the church choir and wanted to invite her parents to her church in order to show her performance. It is believed that she first reported her church membership to her parents in 2008.
Ms. Majima has been working in Tokyo for a major credit card company, called JCB.  In 2009, she reportedly fasted for seven days as a preparation for the marriage blessing ceremony of the Unification Church. Ms. Majima had joined the Unification Church in 2004 and participated in church programs as a trainee from 2004 to 2006 and has served as a faithful church member since then.

On February 7th she told friends she planned to visit her parents’ home and return on the same day. However, she called a trusted friend in the church about 7 p.m. and said, “Although I was planning to go back to the church today, I cannot go back today.  I think I cannot go back for a while.” She did not respond to questions from her friend during the call.

After that call, her cell phone service reportedly was stopped. Visitors to her parents’ residence report that it appears to be vacant. According to Japanese Unification Church officials, they do not release photos of persons believed to be confined against their will, since the kidnappers have been known to force their victims to renounce their church membership and to file lawsuits against the Unification Church for reporting the kidnapping and confinement, on the grounds of false statement and invasion of privacy.

Since 1969 more than 4,300 members of the Unification Church have been kidnapped and confined by misguided relatives and opponents of the church. Some of the victims have been beaten, sexually assaulted or tortured while in captivity.

On Feb. 19, 2010 the Forum for Religious Freedom, a religious-freedom nonprofit, posted an appeal to the international community on the newsletter of the Brussels-based Human Rights Without Frontiers [http://www.hrwf.net], with the following opening statement: “On behalf of The Japanese Victims' Association Against Religious Kidnapping and Forced Conversion we appeal to the international community to influence the government of Japan to take action urgently to halt the impunity related to the long-term and persistent use of kidnapping, forced confinement and even torture of its citizens. These cases involve denial of multiple rights, including and especially freedom of religion during which time members of religious communities are being coerced to change their beliefs while confined against their will.”

 On January 12, 2010 the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, a human rights monitoring group in Washington, D.C. issued a statement calling upon the government of Japan “to bring to a halt the long-term and persistent use of kidnapping and forced confinement of its citizens to deny and change their religious beliefs.”
Contributed by Douglas Burton

Link: http://www.familyfed.org/news/index.php?id=111&page=1&apage=1

Kidnapping, Confinement & Forced Conversion in Japan: UN-Human Rights Council

13th Session, United Nations Human Rights Council
Written Statement Item 3: Civil and Political Rights/ Freedom of Religion
JAPAN
Submitted in English by: Universal Peace Federation, ECOSOC special consultative status

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UN Representative, Heiner Handschin, ch des la Pierreire 1c,
1092 Belmont sur Lausanne,  079 250 3477,  europe2@upf.org

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Religious freedom is one of the fundamental freedoms and rights to which all people are entitled and we must be vigilant against all violations of religious freedom. The Universal Peace Federation affirms the essential value and significance of religion, and hence religious freedom, for the achievement of global peace. If we hinder freedom of religion, we endanger the prospects for peace. This applies not only to majority religions, but minority religions as well.

As such, we appeal to the United Nations Human Rights Council to influence the government of Japan to take action urgently to halt the impunity related to the long-term and persistent use of kidnapping, forced confinement and even torture of its citizens. These cases involve denial of multiple rights, including and especially freedom of religion during which time members of religious communities are being coerced to change their beliefs while confined against their will.

It has been reported that in the Unification Church alone more than 4,300 members have been victimized to date. During the past four decades, over 1,300 adherents have managed to escape their captors, sometimes at great personal risk, and return to their religious communities. They report human rights violations such as long-term confinement, mental and physical abuse, and psychological manipulation designed to force them to recant their faith.

Despite numerous complaints to police, not one indictment has been brought against the perpetrators of these crimes. Currently at least five Unification Church members remain missing in Japan, suspected to have been confined and held against their will because of their faith: Momoyo Yamada (30), Fusako Tomoda (22), Yuko Majima (60), Masako Kudo (35), and Takashi Nishikawa (26).


The Case of Toru Goto 

One recent shocking example of Japan’s religious intolerance is the case of Mr. Toru Goto, who was confined for over 12 years and 5 months against his will in an apartment in Tokyo. Already in his 30s at the beginning of this confinement (his second), Mr. Goto was imprisoned in one small room, guarded day and night, just blocks away from the municipal authorities. He was not allowed to leave the apartment even to exercise and was not permitted communication with the outside world during these 12 years. He was at times constrained by force and required to listen to his captors’ indoctrination and ridiculing day after day, in an attempt to make him convert from Unificationism to mainline Protestant Christianity. The ringleaders in this case were the Christian minister Toridechi Yasutomo Matsunaga and professional “deprogrammer” Shun Takashi Miyamura in collusion with members of Mr. Goto’s family.

When, after 12 years of imprisonment, the captors were forced to admit that Mr. Goto was not going to succumb to their brainwashing techniques, they cruelly threw him out into the street in February 2008, a tall man but weighing only 39 kilo and barely able to walk. He went directly to the police station to report the crime but was refused help. He finally reached the church headquarters in Tokyo and was then taken to the hospital for a prolonged rehabilitation. He filed charges against the perpetrators of this crime in 2008, and yet on December 9, 2009, Tokyo prosecutors refused to indict them. Their claim of “insufficient evidence” is a travesty of justice and the government’s action of turning a blind eye allows those responsible to continue their activities with impunity.

Here are just a few of many documented testimonies showing how severely human lives have been affected through these crimes: