Japan | The suspect in the shooting of Shinzō Abe said that he aimed his attack at the United Church, i.e. the so-called “moonites” – Why?

in Japan of the former prime minister Shinzo Abe At the turn of the week, new information was received about the motives for the fatal shooting.

Abe was shot with a homemade gun during a campaign speech last Friday in the western Japanese city of Nara. He later died of blood loss from the gunshot wounds.

Read more: Two shots, a cloud of white smoke and Japan’s former prime minister fell to the ground – This is what is known about the death of Shinzō Abe

Based on the additional information shared by the police and collected by the Japanese media, the motive of the person arrested for the shooting was not political but personal: He was bitter about his mother falling into the hands of the United Church, and believed that Abe was pushing the church’s cause.

of Japan the police and the Japanese media initially spoke of an unnamed “religious group” that the detainee bore a grudge against.

News agency By Kyodo News according to sources, the suspected shooter has said that his mother gave this religious entity a “huge” donation, which resulted in his embezzlement.

Kyodo News also reported that the detainee first tried to make a bomb, but later ended up with a firearm. The news office according to sources the target of the shooting was originally supposed to be one of the leaders of a religious organization, and the man first tested himself in the premises of this organization.

The news agency Reuters and Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun. The latter was told about the matter by a relative of the person arrested for the shooting.

According to a 70-year-old relative, the suspect has had a difficult time since childhood because his mother had joined a religious group, Asahi Shimbun reports.

The police At the turn of the week, the unnamed religious body was confirmed to be a Korean-oriented neo-religious movement, the United Church.

Reuters reported on Monday that the United Church confirmed in its own news conference that the mother of the man arrested in connection with the shooting was a member of the church.

The mother’s name was not released to the public, nor was the church spokesman Tomihiro Tanaka took a stand on this person’s financial situation or donation amounts.

Tanaka also stated that neither former Prime Minister Abe nor the suspect in his shooting were members of the church, Reuters reports. According to Tanaka, Abe also did not act as an advisor to the organization, but had given speeches and sent messages to the events of the church’s partners.

The Unification Church is a Korean businessman by Sun Myung Moon A new religious movement founded in the 1950s, also known as Moonism.

The movement’s English name is “The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification”, which is why it is internationally known by the abbreviation Yyädtimiskirkko (Unification Church).

The new religion, which combines Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism, originated from the vision of its founder. Moon said that he saw Jesus as a teenager, who asked him to continue working “for harmony and purity”.

According to itself, the Unification Church had around three million members in the 1980s. Today, according to news agencies, members are estimated to be hundreds of thousands or at most one million.

The movement is especially known for mass weddings of thousands of people, where it claims to bring couples into contact with God.

The Unification Church The Japanese chapter was established in the early days of the movement in 1959. Founder Moon was born in North Korea during the time when Korea was under Japanese rule.

Moon also studied in Japan at Waseda University in the 1940s. For these reasons, the manager also knew fluent Japanese.

Along with the roles of pastor and movement leader, Moon was also a multi-millionaire convicted of tax fraud in the United States. With his world tours, he tried to build business and gather support for his new religion.

However, Moon’s companies ran into difficulties already in the 1990s. After Moon’s death in 2012, his wife has continued to manage the store Hak And Han and their sons Hyung Jin Moon.

Read more: A businessman who declared himself a messiah

Temperancemass events and aggressive fundraising have also characterized the organization in the 2000s.

According to the AFP news agency, several lawsuits have been brought against the United Church in Japan, related to the loss of money to the organization.

The person arrested for shooting Abe considered the former prime minister a messenger of the United Church. According to the news agencies, the reason is Abe’s speeches at events related to the United Church.

The speeches have often attracted criticism. According to AFP, lawyers representing former members of the United Church in court have protested, for example, a telegram that Abe sent to a mass wedding of the United Church in 2006.

In September 2021, Abe gave a speech at the “Rally of Hope Think Tank 2022” event of the United Church’s cooperation organization. In it, he praised the organizations’ peace work on the Korean peninsula.

In addition to his speeches, Abe joins the Unification Church with his grandfather, who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960 Nobusuke Kishin through.

Moon, the leader of the Unification Church, established relations with Japan’s political elite starting in the 1960s while campaigning against communism in the country, according to Reuters.

Kishi attended a dinner hosted by Moon in the 1960s for the International Federation for Victory over Communism, according to Reuters.