Unification Church faces uphill task in Japan to fight court’s liquidation ruling
Critics have called the group a ‘money-making business’, with many people having lost huge sums of money from its ‘spiritual sales’
The Tokyo High Court is widely expected to uphold a lower court’s order to dissolve the organisation, officially known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, in a ruling that could set a rare precedent for disbanding a major religious body in Japan.
If the ruling stands, legal experts expect the group to appeal swiftly to the Supreme Court, though such a move may not automatically halt liquidation proceedings.
The organisation would lose its status as a religious corporation, forfeit tax privileges and enter court-supervised liquidation even while an appeal is pending.
In the aftermath of the shooting, the Unification Church faced intense scrutiny over what critics called “spiritual sales” – the solicitation of donations and inflated sales of inexpensive items by invoking religious beliefs.