Editing Anti-cult movement (section)

=== Japan ===
{{See also|Unification Church|Aum Shinrikyo|National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales}}

A lawyer's organization called the [[National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales]] (NNLASS) was formed to combat the "spiritual sales" organized by the [[Unification Church]] and supposedly forced donations. According to NNLASS, the group received over 34,000 complaints about "spiritual sales" and forced donations by 2021 totaling to about 123.7 billion [[Japanese yen|yen]] ([[United States dollar|US$]]902 million).<ref>{{Cite news |date=2022-07-13 |title=Problems over money continue at Unification Church: lawyers |url=https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14668795 |access-date=2022-07-15 |work=[[The Asahi Shimbun]] |language=en}}</ref> According to Yoshihide Sakurai, Japanese courts originally would require religious groups to return large donations if the person never joined the group, but once the person joined the group, their "spiritual sale" was made completely within their own [[free will]] and should not be returned. However, lawyers argued that if the person was forced to make a donation, then they were not making it out of their free will and thus their donation or sale should be returned.{{r|sakurai|page=33}} Based on a 2006 [[Tokyo District Court]] decision, the circumstances of whether or not the Unification Church used illegal recruiting or donation soliciting tactics were to be determined on a case-by-case basis, which was upheld by a 2007 appeal.{{r|sakurai|page=33–34}}

In 1995, [[Aum Shinrikyo]], a Japanese [[new religious movement]], attacked a [[Tokyo subway sarin attack|Tokyo subway with sarin gas]], killing 14 people and injuring about 1,000. After this incident, mainstream Japanese society faced their "cult problem" directly.{{r|sakurai|page=30}} Various anti-cult groups – many of them local – emerged from the publicity of the "Aum Affair." One of which is the Japan De-Culting Council (日本脱カルト研究会) on 11 November 1995.<ref>{{Cite journal |author=Watanabe Manabu |title=Reactions to the Aum Affair: The Rise of the 'Anti-Cult' Movement in Japan |url=https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/journal/3/issue/21/article/53|access-date=2023-01-02 |journal=Bulletin of the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture |volume=21 |year=1997 |pages=32–48}}</ref> It was founded by lawyers, psychologists, academics, and other interested parties like ex-[[New religious movement|NRM]] members.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Baffelli|first1=Erica|last2=Reader|first2=Ian|date=2012|title=Editors' Introduction: Impact and Ramifications: The Aftermath of the Aum Affair in the Japanese Religious Context|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41495887|journal=Japanese Journal of Religious Studies|volume=39|issue=1|pages=1–28|jstor=41495887 |issn=0304-1042}}</ref> It changed its name to the {{ill|Japan Society for Cult Prevention and Recovery|ja|日本脱カルト協会}} in April 2004.

In 1989, [[Tsutsumi Sakamoto]] was an anti-cult lawyer working on a civil case against Aum Shinrikyo. At approximately 3:00&nbsp;a.m. [[Japan Standard Time|JST]] ([[UTC+09:00|UTC+9:00]]), several members of Aum Shinrikyo entered Sakamoto's apartment in [[Yokohama]]. He, his wife, Satoko, and his 14-month-old son, Tatsuhiko, were all killed. In the aftermath of the Aum Affair in 1995, some Aum Shinrikyo members and one former member in September 1995 tipped off [[National Police Agency (Japan)|Japanese police]] about the general location of the bodies of the three victims, which were scattered to complicate search efforts.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Pollack |first=Andrew |date=1995-09-07 |title=Japanese Police Find Body of a Lawyer Believed Killed by Cult |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/07/world/japanese-police-find-body-of-a-lawyer-believed-killed-by-cult.html |access-date=2022-07-15 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

On 8 July 2022, [[Tetsuya Yamagami]] allegedly assassinated former Prime Minister of Japan [[Shinzo Abe]]. Upon his immediate arrest, Yamagami testified that he was driven by Abe's relationship with the Unification Church. Yamagami's mother made large donations to the Unification Church that bankrupted their family.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2022-07-15 |title=EXPLAINER: The Unification Church's ties to Japan's politics |url=https://apnews.com/article/shinzo-abe-japan-crime-tokyo-south-korea-4bac3b7b504b857bc4d2a8ff503b4b37 |access-date=2022-07-15 |work=[[Associated Press]] |language=en}}</ref> This incident brought renewed attention to the social issues related to cults in Japan, which include the questionable religious meddling in state politics, fraudulent fundraising in the name of religion, and the welfare of [[shūkyō nisei]] ([[religion and children|children of religious family]]).<ref>{{Citation |url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/podcast/unification-church-kishida/ |first1=Shaun|last1=McKenna|first2=Kanako|last2=Takahara |title=Deep Dive Episode 139: The Church, the State and Kishida's headache |work=[[The Japan Times]] |date=7 December 2022 |access-date=21 January 2023}}</ref>