Reports on the Unification Church are mixed as it became known that the former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s assassin had chosen the former Unification Church (Family Federation for World Peace and Unification) as the cause of the murder by a religious group whose mother was missing. While the Hankyoreh reported an analysis article stating that former Prime Minister Abe sent a video to a Unification Church event because of a long-standing friendship between Sun Myung Moon, the leader of the Unification Church and Japan’s right wing, the Segye Ilbo, established by the Unification Church, delivered a position that it would not mention the Unification Church as much as possible or cooperate with the investigation. Only articles were published.
This news was reported on the morning of the 10th by Newsis (“The sniper decided to kill the sniper after seeing the video sent to the religious group”), the Munhwa Ilbo (“The religion without the mother of Abe murderer is the ‘old Unification Church’”… Japanese media claims), etc. announced through the press. According to the Japanese media, the name of the religious group that assassin Tetsuya Yamagami stated as the motive for the crime was the ‘Former Unification Church’. It is a content that the Unification Church leader was targeted, but former Prime Minister Abe, who sent the video to the Unification Church because it seemed difficult, thought that there might be a relationship and targeted it.
The Segye Ilbo, founded by the Unification Church, does not mention the Unification Church in its related reports. On the 11th, the Segye Daily reported in an article on the international page, “Yamagami said in a police investigation, ‘It is not a grudge against former Prime Minister Abe’s political beliefs. There was a grudge against a specific group, and I believed that former Prime Minister Abe was connected to that group.” Here, the specific organization refers to the former Unification Church.
The Segye Ilbo on the 12th, “I lost a respected politician… My sincere condolences” mentions the ‘Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (Unification Church)’. This is the content of the press conference held by the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. In other words, it was the first article to mention the Unification Church as an article conveying the position of the Unification Church.
According to the article written by the Tokyo Correspondent, “(The Unification Church) announced on the 11th that it would cooperate with the police investigation at any time, requesting restraint from speculative reports by some Japanese media and indiscriminate suspicions through social media, etc.” is telling
Regarding the question about the relationship between Prime Minister Abe and the Family Federation (Unification Church), he said, “Ex-Prime Minister Abe supported the peace movement promoted by President Hak Ja Han (the founder of the Family Federation) together with leaders from around the world, and expressed his support for the friendly relationship with the Family Federation. The Segye Ilbo reported that he was merely sending a message to an organization that exists.
On the other hand, on this day, the Hankyoreh published an article analyzing the relationship between the Unification Church and the Japanese right wing. “Why Abe’s video speech at the Unification Church event?… In an article titled, “Long-time friendship between Sun Myung Moon and the Japanese right wing,” “The reason Abe sent the video seems to be because of the relationship that the Unification Church has with Japan’s right-wing political forces for a long time.” It is said that he has established a close relationship with Japanese right-wing politicians since the founding of the company.” The Hankyoreh added, “This can also be confirmed by visiting the Unification Church in Japan in 1970 by former Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke, who was Abe’s maternal grandfather and far-right member of the LDP.”
He also mentioned that the Unification Church is strong in Japan. The Hankyoreh said, “The Unification Church in Japan began in 1959 when Unification Church evangelist Choi Sang-ik went to Japan.” The relationship between the Unification Church and Japan was conveyed through the fact that more than 90% of the engraved list of donors for the construction were Japanese, and that the majority of women who married Korean men in the Unification Church’s joint marriage were Japanese women.
CBS, a Christian media outlet, also covered the relationship between the Unification Church and former Prime Minister Abe. On the 13th, on CBS Radio’s ‘Kim Hyun-jung’s News Show’, a religious reporter who had completed a local coverage of Japan appeared and dealt with the situation in detail. According to the CBS coverage, unlike the Unification Church’s clarification press conference and previous media reports, the assassin was not a reclusive loner, and the assassin’s mother didn’t just attend once a month, but lost his fortune through a considerable amount of donations. comes out
Regarding the mention of the assassin trying to assassinate the Unification Church leader, he said, “Yamagami-san once came to Korea.” This means that an assassination attempt could have taken place in South Korea, not in Japan, where Abe was not the former prime minister.
Although it was already known through the media in Korea and Japan that the religion that the assassin harbored a grudge against was the Unification Church, there were also voices of concern about revealing the Unification Church in Japan at the beginning of the incident. On the 11th, the Hankook Ilbo reported that “the major Japanese media have been silent about which religion it is,” and “because it can incite public opinion against a particular religion.”
According to the Hankook Ilbo, Yomiuri said, “It is a religion that originated abroad and a video message sent by former Prime Minister Abe to a private group event established by Group A has been uploaded on the Internet,” and speculation has been raised that it is the Unification Church. Afterwards, the Unification Church said that the assassin’s mother was a former Unification Church member, but she does not attend the church now.
However, CBS introduces the background in which the Japan International Victory Federation mentioned by the Hankyoreh formed a deep relationship with the Japanese right wing under the banner of ‘victory of communism’ and ‘anti-communism’, a familiar term in Korea. For example, in the Unification Church of Japan, more than 100 members of the Liberal Democratic Party act as secretaries of the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party and call them ‘public offices’. The Japanese media reported that photos of Kishinobusuke and Sun Myung Moon were appearing on TV as breaking news, and that a long-standing relationship was being reported one by one.
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