A Tokyo court will deliver its ruling in March on whether to disband the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, formerly known as the Unification Church, marking Japan's first major test of religious organization regulation since the Aum Shinrikyo cult attacks three decades ago.
The Tokyo District Court announced Tuesday it will issue a decision next month on the government's October 2023 petition seeking the religious corporation's dissolution. The case has become a focal point of Japanese politics following the July 2022 assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by a man whose mother had donated substantial sums to the church, leaving the family financially ruined.
The government's dissolution order, filed under the Religious Corporations Act, alleges the church systematically solicited excessive donations that caused financial hardship to followers and their families. If granted, the ruling would strip the organization of its religious corporation status and associated tax benefits, though it would not prohibit the group from continuing religious activities.
The case has exposed the Liberal Democratic Party's decades-long ties to the South Korea-based church, founded in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon. Multiple LDP lawmakers acknowledged connections to the organization following Abe's death, forcing the party to order members to sever all relationships. Abe himself had sent video messages to church-affiliated events, a detail that emerged after his killing.
Japan last invoked dissolution authority against a religious organization in 1996, when courts disbanded Aum Shinrikyo following its sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 13 people. That precedent required proof the group's activities "clearly harm the public welfare."
The Unification Church has contested the dissolution petition, arguing its fundraising practices have improved and that the government action infringes on religious freedom guaranteed under Japan's constitution. The organization reportedly has about 60,000 members in Japan, where it has operated for over six decades.
Legal experts note the government faces a higher evidentiary bar than in the Aum case, given the Unification Church has not engaged in violent criminal acts. Prosecutors must demonstrate that donation solicitation practices were both systematic and harmful enough to justify dissolution—the 解散 (kaisan, dissolution) that carries profound legal and social weight in Japanese administrative law.
The ruling comes as Japan grapples with renewed scrutiny of the intersection between religion and politics. A government survey released last year found that roughly 30 percent of Diet members, mostly from the LDP, had some form of contact with the church or its affiliated organizations.
For families affected by what they describe as predatory fundraising, the March ruling represents a potential turning point. Victims' advocates have documented cases of followers donating millions of yen—often their entire savings or proceeds from selling family homes—after being told such contributions would absolve ancestral sins.
The court's decision will likely set the standard for how Japan regulates religious organizations in an era when constitutional protections for religious freedom must be balanced against the state's duty to protect citizens from exploitation. The Constitutional Democratic Party and other opposition groups have called for stricter oversight of religious fundraising practices.
Watch what they do, not what they say. In East Asian diplomacy, the subtext is the text—and in this case, the government's willingness to pursue dissolution after decades of political accommodation speaks volumes about how profoundly Abe's assassination shifted the calculus.
