Tokyo — Tetsuya Yamagami told police that he had a “grudge” against a “specific group” when he was arrested after the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. However, authorities have not identified the organization and have not explained their relationship with Mr Abe.
In the midst of speculation in the Japanese media, the focus is now on the Unification Church, a Christian group known for its efforts to foster relationships between collective weddings and conservative political parties around the world.
At a press conference on Monday, church officials elaborated on the organizational relationship with Mr. Yamagami’s mother and described her as a longtime member. She joined the church in 1998, but she lost contact with her group for a long time before she returned earlier this year, said Tomihiro Tanaka, head of the Japanese branch of the church.
The church, which did not explicitly identify it as a group quoted by police, said there was no record of Mr Yamagami being a member so far and he was unaware of the threats he had directed at him. The church also said it had interacted with other members of the Diet through related organizations, but had no direct relationship with Prime Minister Abe.
Police have given little details about Mr. Yamagami (41), who was charged with murder. Prime Minister Abe was shot from behind him with a homemade gun in Nara on Friday while addressing his candidate two days before the parliamentary elections.
Yamagami told the police that he had served in the Japanese army after his arrest. He served in the Navy of the country for three years with the same name and date of birth.
At a press conference on Monday, police said Mr Yamagami had confessed that he had tested improvised weapons the day before Mr Abe’s shooting. Police said Friday that several improvised guns had been confiscated from Mr Yamagami’s apartment.
The shooting shook a country where gun violence was rare, but when Abe woke up at one of Tokyo’s largest Buddhist temples on Monday night, there were few signs of improved security. Mourners coming off the street bloomed in front of Mr. Abe’s photo. Nearby, a stream of high-ranking officials in black suits and dresses came in from a nearby train station or arrived at a guarded gate by car, but no one imposed strict security checks. It seems that.
The day after Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party won the Upper House election, mourners gathered. On Monday afternoon, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida praised Prime Minister Abe’s leadership and promised that the newly empowered Liberal Democratic Party would work to achieve his long-standing goals, including the revision of the country’s pacifist constitution.
He said the Japanese had “called for arousal” to the party to ensure Abe’s legacy. “It is unbearable that a great leader loved all over the world was suddenly attacked by violence and robbed him of his life.”
The Unification Church was founded in Korea in 1954 by Rev. Sun Myung Moon. He then expanded abroad and built a network of newspapers and citizenships that he used to build relationships with conservative political parties around the world. We also generated questions about recruitment and business practices. In the 1970s and 1980s, the group faced proceedings on charges of “brainwashing” and solicitation of funds by parents who said their children were forced to participate.
The church established a branch in Japan in the late 1950s and soon Common cause with right-wing Japanese politiciansAbout their common hostility to communism, including Mr. Abe’s grandfather Nobusuke Kishi.
The relationship between church-related organizations and members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party developed over the next few decades as the church grew in size and Japanese believers generated billions of dollars in income for the group.
However, the influence of the Unification Church in Japan has diminished in recent decades, and it has been difficult to hire new members since the post-mortem division of Mr. Tsuki in 2012.・ Yoshihide Sakurai, a professor of religion, said. Japanese church.
Church-related groups continue to attract some Japan’s top parliamentarian For their event.
In 2021, with Mr. Abe Other politicians from some countriesIncluding the United States, get together In South Korea, it is run by a group related to the Unification Church. In a video feed, Prime Minister Abe praised “focusing and emphasizing family values.”
And in 2022 Meeting in Seoul A speaker who promotes peace on the Korean Peninsula wrote briefly remarks On behalf of Mr. Abe. They expressed their hope that the conference would “open a new path to peaceful reconciliation.”
News coverage of the relationship between Prime Minister Abe and the events of 2021 has attracted national criticism in Japan. Communist Party And other groups, Bar Association It launched a decades-long campaign against the activities of the Unification Church in Japan.
In an open letter to Mr Abe, the National Network of Lawyers Against Inspirational Commercial Law called on the former Prime Minister to break the relationship between the Church and its affiliates, saying, “It is absolutely impossible to cooperate and support these events. No. It’s a good idea. “
Sakurai said his connection to the Unification Church was probably “very weak,” and described Abe’s remarks to the group as “a normal job for politicians who want to collect votes.”
The church said it was just one of many religious groups with a right-wing political belief that Prime Minister Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party’s Conservative Party were looking for political support. Levi McLaughlinAssociate Professor at North Carolina State University, studying the relationship between Japanese politics and religion.
“This is not uncommon and certainly not exclusive,” he added, “it happened that the church shared much of the LDP, especially Prime Minister Abe’s policy platform.”.. “
Motoko Rich When Hikari Hida Report that contributed.
