Japan Court Upholds Dissolution of Unification Church in Landmark Religious Freedom Ruling

A Tokyo court has upheld the dissolution of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification — the religious organization formerly known as the Unification Church — in what critics call a landmark ruling against religious freedom in Japan. The court found that the organization's aggressive solicitation of major donations constituted grounds for dissolution, rejecting the group's appeal. The ruling comes more than three years after the 2022 assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by a man whose mother had been driven to financial ruin by donations to the church — a killing that exposed the depth of the organization's entanglement with Japanese politics. The case raises complex questions about the boundary between legitimate religious giving and coercive financial exploitation, and about how far governments should go in regulating religious organizations' internal practices.