Japan Panel Gives Green Light to Unification Church Questioning

Tokyo, Nov. 21 (Jiji Press)--Japan’s Religious Juridical Persons Council gave the go ahead Monday for the government to ask the Unification Church questions under the religious cooperation law.

The government will open an inquiry into the religious group, currently called Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, as early as Tuesday using the right to demand reports and ask questions, informed sources said.

It will be the first time for the right, stipulated in the law through its revision in 1995, to be exercised.

Cultural minister Keiko Nagaoka, who sought the council’s approval Monday, also received opinions about questions to be asked and reasons for asking them from the 19 members of the advisory body, many of whom are university professors and religious figures, as the law requests. All the members, including Keio University Prof. Aki Kitazawa, head of the council, were involved in compiling the criteria for exercising the questioning right.

According to the ministry’s Cultural Affairs Agency, the members at the day’s closed-door meeting unanimously approved Nagaoka’s plan to demand the Unification Church reply to the pages of questions concerning the group’s structure, management, assets, revenues and expenditures.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]