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1. With the purpose of eliminating "the spiritual sales" and
recovering the damages suffered by the victims, the present Network began
its activities since February, 1987, and was formally established in May
of the same year. In the past seven years, approximately 300 lawyers from
across the country have been continuing the activities. 2. The Spiritual Sales is a wicked sales conducted by the "Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity" ("Unification Church" hereafter) for gaining money for its activities. The typical ways of doing this are as follows: (1) Approaching the citizens through individual door-to-door visitations or in the downtown area while hiding its identity as the Unification Church. "Please cooperate in the questionnaire for the study of the youths' consciousness." "I am studying palm reading." "There are lines in your hand which tell that you are in the transition period." They draw out the worries, unfortunate happenings in the family and check the financial situation. (2) Through such an approach, they trick the people into buying a seal stamp (hanko) or a rosary , at home, coffee shop, or apartment room , by threatening them for long hours saying, "in order to free you from the fateful destiny of ancestors." This costs about 100,000 yen and up to 2 million yen. (3) Until 1987, in addition to the above-mentioned tactics, they made people buy marble jar (a few million yen), Tahoto (5.4 million to ten million yen), Shakato (4.4 million yen), Korai Jinsen extract (essence, concentrated) (80,000 yen per bottle, of which some bought over100 bottles). By saying, "A very prominent mentor who can see the spiritual world will take time especially to meet you,"they tempt people to come to a sacred place, and by using the worries they had learned of in advance, say,"If you leave it the way it is now, your parents will die soon... Your children will become sick... Your husband will have an affair... You won't be able to have a happy marriage. And these are because your ancestors have committed murder, have had affairs, etc." They continue to bluff and intimidate people for hours. The marble jars and Tahoto and Shakato are manufactured by Isshin Sekizai (in Korea), the Jinsen extracts by Ichiwa (in Korea). These are imported by Happy World, Inc. which is the undertaking trading company on the Japan side, and are sold through the wholesale company and retail company established by the followers. (4) After 1988, the followers were continuously imposed upon with a quota and were selling Jinsen extracts. However, recently, they are making people buy Buddha statues and family trees for a few million yen by using the same threatening words, and forcing them to make all their savings into an offering. (5) In addition, they use tactics which violate the door-to-door sales law by making people buy items such as jewelry, kimonos, and paintings at exorbitant prices in a very forcible manner. (6) The amount of offerings Sun Myung Moon orders to be collected from the Japanese followers every month through the Japanese senior officials is enormous. In 1986 and 1987, the amount was as high as 10 billion yen every month, and in about 1990, it was still a few billion yen every month. In order to fulfill the assigned task, the followers who have jobs are forced to make loans of approximately 1 million yen from a number of financial institutions. In addition, housewives who have real estate and old aged people living alone have been forced to make offerings in the amount of tens and hundreds of million yen by intimidation. They have also been made to borrow money from financial institutions on the security of real estates, which are then taken by the Unification Church. This kind of debts are received with promises of payment by the Unification Church, but with increasing debts and without any repayment, there are many citizens who are in trouble. 3. A part of the victims of the Spiritual Sales have come to us lawyers and consumer counselors of the government bodies. The total number of victims has soared and the damages are high. The true figure of victimized citizens, however, is assumed to be over ten times more than what is recognized, for the fear of bad luck from ancestors and repercussions from the Unification Church. In the past seven years (from February 1989 through February 1994), just from the cases that were brought to the attention of us lawyers, there have been about 16,000 cases, and the losses have been over 60 billion yen. We have solved these cases through negotiations and lawsuits, and have recovered the damages. Yet the Unification Church repeats the vicious cycle of creating new victims in order to pay compensations to other victims. Moreover, because the Unification Church is under financial difficulty, recently, it has assumed a defiant attitude and there are increasing cases in which the Church refuses to enter a negotiation, and has been prolonging the process of negotiation or lawsuits. In June, 1993, the two district courts in Tokyo and Yokohama judged that the damages made to the victims by the Unification Church are tort actions, and the decision for a seizure was rendered for the properties (land and buildings) of the headquarters of the Unification Church (Shibuya-ku, Tokyo) and the Yokohama Church. 4. In January, 1993, Michio Fujii, the new President of Japan Unification Church, submitted a statement to us lawyers asking for a waiting for payment because the Japanese Unification Church is in debt to 400 billion yen. Even though collecting an enormous capital, most of it is sent to the companies related to Sun Myung Moon and to the Unification Church in Korea and the U.S.A. there is almost no property left in Japan. There is an enormous amount of mortgage by the First Bank of Korea on the real estates in Japan in the name of the Japan Unification Church. 5. Among the Japanese followers of the Unification Church (estimated at 20,000 people), over half have quit their jobs, left their families, and are living in a cooperative with followers. All day long, they are forced to do fund-raising by committing illegal acts such as swindling through a fraudulent missionary work and spiritual sales. They are taught to "Believe and die, and live for Sun Myung Moon", and they believe that by deceiving people to come to the church, intimidating people and making them pay money, will save the people and themselves in the spiritual world. The problem with the missionary activities of the Unification Church is that they first invite people by hiding their identity as the Unification Church and a religion, and then to do mind control by cleverly threatening. Many followers have given up their youth for years by living on a little allowance every month by threatening based on their teachings, and are overworked. While being actors of crimes of spiritual sales, they themselves have become victims of the faith. 6. We therefore submit the following statements as a proposition to Sun Myung Moon and the senior officials of the Unification Church in Korea: E For the victims residing in Japan, it should sell part of the properties accumulated by depriving Japanese through the spiritual sales, and return the money. E To stop assigning the tasks with definite goals to the Japanese followers to send money and to do fraudulent missonary work. E To stop preaching to the followers, by tempting the people into places such as the video centre for missionary activities, by hiding its identity as the Unification Church. |
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