Japanese Govt. May Soon Exercise Right To Question Religious Group
Japan's education and culture minister Nagaoka Keiko is expected to announce on Friday that the government will exercise the right to question a religious group previously known as the Unification Church. The group is accused of soliciting large donations from followers and conducting dubious marketing practices known as spiritual sales.
On Tuesday, the ministry's expert panel approved criteria for exercising the right to ask questions.
The criteria allow members of religious groups to be questioned when they are suspected of repeated legal violations or when there is grave damage.
The ministry compared cases linked to the former Unification Church to the criteria, and judged it is possible to exercise the right to inquiry.
The ministry will draft questions and the reasons for asking them, and refer the draft to the religious corporation council by the end of this month. It will then exercise the right to question the religious group.
If the ministry learns facts that warrant an order to disband the religious corporation, it will consider asking a court to issue a disbandment order even while the inquiry is ongoing.
This would be the first use of the right to ask questions since it was established in a legal revision in 1996.