JAPAN: Lawyers, deprogramming and the Unification Church dissolution case, the Duval Report
Read HRWF Report based on 20 interviews of victims in Tokyo and published in 2012 “Japan Abduction and Deprivation of Freedom for the Purpose of Religious De-conversion”
HRWF (24.06.2025) – Human Rights Without Frontiers is presenting you a series of seven articles about the dissolution of the Unification Church in Japan published by attorney Patricia Duval from the Paris Bar in Bitter Winter.
1.Kidnapping believers
Many civil cases cited in the dissolution decision were initiated by deprogrammed devotees compelled to sue the Church to prevent being confined again.
by Patricia Duval (*)
Bitter Winter (10.06.2025) – In February 1987, in Japan, a group of attorneys of radical left-wing political obedience created a network of lawyers with the stated purpose of fighting for the elimination from Japan of the Unification Church (now called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, but hereafter designated for ease of understanding as “the Unification Church” or “the Church”).
The association, named the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales (hereafter “NNLSS,” or “the Network,” or “the Lawyers’ Network”), was established to combat the Unification Church at a time when the latter was opposing atheistic Communism, as a threat to spirituality in Asia in the post-World War II era.
2.The Case of Dr Koide
A medical doctor was kidnapped and confined to “de-convert” him from the Unification Church.
by Patricia Duval (*)
Bitter Winter (11.06.2025) – In a second case where a Habeas Corpus petition was filed, after the one discussed in my first article, a Unification Church follower, Hirohisa Koide, a 30-year-old medical doctor at Isshin Hospital in Tokyo, was abducted and confined for nearly two years.
On June 13, 1992, he was working as a doctor. He saw an average of thirty-five outpatients daily and was in charge of about fifteen inpatients. At around 8 p.m. that evening, he returned to his parents’ house in Warabi City at his mother’s request.
Nearly twenty relatives abruptly came in and made him sit in the back room, surrounding him. His father said, “Hirohisa! As your parents, siblings, and relatives, we cannot allow you to take part and work in a criminal organization called the Unification Church. Let’s discuss this frankly and carefully in another place we’ve prepared.” He was then confined and tentatively “deprogrammed” for about two years.
3.The Pact with the United Church of Christ of Japan
Secular left-wing anti-cult lawyers cooperated with Protestant ministers who acted as deprogrammers.
by Patricia Duval (*)
Bitter Winter (12.06.2025) – Lawyer Hiroshi Yamaguchi is a key founder of the anti-Unification Church NNLSS and was appointed Secretary General of the Network when it was incorporated in May 1987.
His background reveals his radical left-wing obedience (he was part of the faction of the Socialist party close to the Communists), his fight against the donations made to the Unification Church, and his participation in consumer affairs institutions over the years to this end.
He also established contacts and collaborated with pastors engaged in deprogramming, which they called “rescue,” from an early time.
4.The Deprogrammers’ Manual
The late Pastor Kyoko Kawasaki published in 1990 a guide to deprogramming, expressly inciting the use of violence against the believers.
by Patricia Duval (*)
Bitter Winter (13.06.2025) – In 1990, a pastor from the UCCJ published an “Instruction Guide for Rescue” (hereafter “the Guide”) that provided all the details about what “rescue” consisted of.
Pastor Kyoko Kawasaki (1929–2012) of the Tanimura Church of the UCCJ wrote a book titled “The True Face of the Unification Church: The Reality of the Brainwashing and Countermeasures,” published by Kyobunkan (first edition in April 1990). In it, she (the pastor) advocated for and instructed on the “rescue” of Unification Church believers.
5. Testimonies in Court
The leading anti-cult lawyers acknowledged during cross-examination that they referred parents to deprogrammers.
By Patricia Duval (*)
Bitter Winter (16.06.2025) – On June 15, 2015, in one of the tort cases on which the government relied to request dissolution of the Church, lawyer Hiroshi Yamaguchi was called to testify against the Unification Church in a case filed by a former member at the Tokyo District Court.
In this case, the plaintiff graduated from a prestigious university and was on the path to becoming an elite executive in a top company. She met the Unification Church and embraced the faith in 2001. After nine years in the Church, in December 2010, when she returned to her parents’ home, she was abducted and confined by relatives and subjected to deprogramming, leading to her withdrawal from the Church.
The plaintiff called lawyer Yamaguchi to testify about the Church’s alleged illegal activities. The Church lawyer, Nobuya Fukumoto, then cross-examined him. Lawyer Fukumoto asked him about NNLSS’ referral of parents to deprogrammers to handle their children.
6.The Secret Letters
Confidential documents show that lawyers contacted parents who had never complained about their children’s involvement in the church and urged them to hire deprogrammers.
By Patricia Duval (*)
Bitter Winter (17.06.2025) – NNLSS lawyers referred parents to pastors precisely because they used these “rescue” methods. This is evident in the “secret letters” one of the Network’s leading attorneys sent to parents.
Journalist Kazuhiro Yonemoto has published these letters online in a series entitled “Secret Letters of Attorney Hiroshi Watanabe,” “Letters that Lead You to the Kidnapping and Confinement Strategy.”
7.Liability of the Japanese State
By Patricia Duval (*)
Bitter Winter (18.06.2025) – Deprogramming and its use as a weapon to destroy the Unification Church were done with the support of Japanese magistrates. Not only has the anti-cult lawyers’ participation in the illegal activities of confinement and illegal de-conversion of Unification Church followers not received disciplinary sanctions from the Bar association, but the Japanese courts have endorsed them during the civil court trials that the government relied on to dissolve the religious corporation.
In the first youth return case before the Sapporo District Court mentioned above, at least sixteen of the twenty plaintiffs, who complained of the Church’s “evangelistic activities” and an alleged infringement of their free will, had been confined and forcefully de-converted per the Court’s findings (maybe all twenty of them had been so mistreated).
(*) Patricia Duval is an attorney and a member of the Paris Bar. She has a degree in public law from La Sorbonne University, and specializes in international human rights law. She has defended the rights of minorities of religion or belief in domestic and international fora, and before international institutions such as the European Court of Human Rights, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the European Union, and the United Nations. She has also published numerous scholarly articles on freedom of religion or belief.
Photo: HRWF Report (116 pages) based on interviews of victims during a fact-finding mission in Tokyo. Author : Willy Fautré – Contributors : Dr Aaron Rhodes and Dr Ian Reader (2012)
