1 July 2016: Kidnapping and deprogramming of converts to new religious movements coming to an end in Japan
Since the beginning of 2015 up to now, there have been no reports of converts to the Unification Church and Jehovah’s Witnesses being kidnapped and confined by family members for the purpose of forceful de-conversion.
Since the 1980s, thousands of converts had been abducted with the help of Evangelical/ Pentecostal pastors and confined for weeks, months or years in some cases to force them to recant their new faith. HRWF published the report “Japan: Abduction and Deprivation of Freedom for the Purpose of Religious De-Conversion” in 2011 and had also filed a complaint with the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva.