The Assassination of Shinzo Abe & the Unification Church
Untangling the Connections Between the Former Japanese Prime Minister and the Korean Church
On July 8, Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister of Japan was murdered during a campaign speech by a lone gunman with a homemade weapon.
Japanese news reports state that the gunman, 41 year old Tetsuya Yamagami, blamed the former prime minister after his “family disintegrated because of his mother’s obsession with a religious group he accuses Abe of promoting.”
When I heard this, I was certain the religious group in question was Soka Gakkai. This new-age Buddhist group, through its political wing, Komeito, has long collaborated with Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and was in a coalition government with Abe throughout his long premiership.
So when my co-editor, Yuko Tamura, said the group was the Unification Church, my reaction was huh?
She sent me some links. I was sure they were fake news. The Japanese press wasn’t reporting it. Neither was any English-language site I could find.
But as information trickled in, it appears she was right. She even told me of a connection between the church and Trump which seemed fanciful until it turned out to be legit. Which led me…
