【Original May 27, 2024】
A symposium on religious freedom in Japan was held in Shizuoka City on May 25, organized by the Shizuoka Citizens’ Association for the Protection of Fundamental Human Rights and Religious Freedom.
Keynote speaker Rev. Haruhisa Nakagawa, pastor of the Lord’s Sheep Christian Church, criticized so-called “defectionists,” who force believers of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (formerly known as the Unification Church; the Family Federation) to renounce their faith, and said that they exploit the love and affection of the followers’ parents.
Nakagawa once talked with a mother who had told him how she went along with the forced apostasy of her own child, and he shared that she had been told by the defectionist, who was also a pastor, that her parenting was bad and her love for her child was insufficient. Nakagawa also pointed out that this defectionist had her confined her own child, and that he never really showed himself.
In the panel discussion that followed the lecture, he touched on the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s request for a dissolution order, saying, “By proceeding with the dissolution, they are trying to sweep the issue of abductions and confinements under the rug. On the contrary, we must expose and bring this issue to the light.”
