TOKYO – When Tetsuya Yamagami was arrested following the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, he told police he had a “feud” with a “certain group”. But authorities have yet to identify the organization or explain its connection to Mr. Abe.
The scrutiny, amid a swirl of speculation in the Japanese media, is now centered on the Unification Church, the Christian group known for its mass weddings and efforts to cultivate relationships with religious leaders. conservative political parties around the world.
At a news conference on Monday, church officials detailed the organization’s relationship with Mr. Yamagami’s mother, describing her as a longtime member. Tomihiro Tanaka, head of the church’s Japan branch, said she joined the church in 1998 but lost contact with the group for a long time before returning earlier this year.
The church, which did not specifically identify itself as the group cited by police, said it had no record that Mr. Yamagami had been a member and was unaware of any threats he made against members. . The church also said it has no direct relationship with Mr. Abe, although it has interacted with other lawmakers through an affiliated organization.
Police have released some details about Mr. Yamagami, 41, who has been charged with murder. Mr. Abe was shot from behind with a homemade gun in Nara on Friday while giving a speech to a candidate two days before parliamentary elections.
After his arrest, Mr. Yamagami told police that he had served in the Japanese military. A person with same name and his date of birth served three years in the country’s Navy.
At a news conference on Monday, police said that Mr. Yamagami had confessed to testing an improvised weapon the day before Mr. Abe was shot. Police said on Friday that several homemade firearms had been seized from Mr. Yamagami’s apartment.
The shooting has rocked a nation where gun violence is rare, but during a wake-up call for Mr Abe on Monday night at one of Tokyo’s largest Buddhist temples, there was little sign of it. security is enhanced. Visitors on the street laid flowers in front of Mr. Abe’s photo. Nearby, a stream of people in black suits and black skirts entered from nearby train stations or arrived by car at a guarded gate, though no one seemed to be going through strict security checks.
The mourners gathered a day after Mr. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party won elections to the upper house. On Monday afternoon, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida praised Mr. Abe’s leadership and pledged that the newly empowered LDP would work to realize his longstanding goals, including amending the pacifist Constitution. peace of the country.
The Japanese people have issued a “call for encouragement” for the party to secure Mr. Abe’s legacy, he said. “It is unbearable when a great leader loved by the whole world suddenly takes his life with violence.”
The Unification Church was founded in Korea in 1954 by Father Sun Myung Moon. It then expanded abroad, building a network of newspapers and civic organizations that it used to develop relationships with conservative political parties around the world. It also generates questions about recruit and business practice. During the 1970s and 1980s, the group faces lawsuits about fundraising and alleged “brainwashing” by parents who say their children have been coerced into participating.
The church established a branch in Japan in the late 1950s, and it was soon established common cause with Japanese right-wing politiciansincluding Nobusuke Kishi, Abe’s grandfather, about their shared feud over Communism.
Relations between church-affiliated organizations and members of the ruling LDP developed in the following decades as the church grew in size and Japanese followers. generate billions of dollars in income for group.
But the Unification Church’s influence in Japan has waned in recent decades, and it has struggled to recruit new members since a schism followed Mr. Death of the Moon in 2012, said Yoshihide Sakurai, a professor of sociology and religion at Hokkaido University who has studied the Unification Church in Japan.
Church-related groups have continued to attract some top Japanese legislators to their events.
In 2021, Mr. Abe and other politicians from some countriesincluding the United States, resolved collect in Korea run by a group affiliated with the Unification Church. Speaking via video feed, Mr Abe praised the group for its “focus and emphasis on family values.”
And in 2022, in a conference in Seoul promoting peace on the Korean Peninsula, one speaker wrote briefly comment on behalf of Mr. Abe. They expressed hope that the meeting would “open up new avenues for peaceful reconciliation.”
News reports about Mr. Abe’s connection to the 2021 event have drawn criticism in Japan from the country. Communist Party and other groups, including bar association prompted a decades-long campaign against the activities of the Unification Church in Japan.
In an open letter to Mr. Abe, the association, National Lawyers Network Against Spiritual Trafficking, asked the former prime minister to sever his links with the church and affiliated organizations, writing that ” cooperation and support for these events is absolutely not. a good opinion. “
His connections with the Unification Church are probably “very weak”, Mr. Sakurai said, describing Mr. Abe’s remarks to the group as “normal business for politicians looking to collect votes. “.
The church is just one of many religious organizations with right-wing political beliefs that Mr. Abe and fellow conservatives in the LDP trust for political support, say. Levi McLaughlinan associate professor at North Carolina State University who studies the link between politics and religion in Japan.
“None of this is unusual, and it is certainly not exclusive,” he said, adding that it only “happens when the church shares so much of the LDP and specific policy backgrounds.” maybe Abe’s. “
Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida contribution report.
