Japan May Seek Court Order to Disband Unification Church

Tokyo, Sept. 3 (Jiji Press)--Japan's education ministry may seek a court order to disband the religious group known as the Unification Church after its failure to properly answer some questions from the government, sources said Sunday. At present, the ministry is preparing to request a court decision to impose a civil fine on the group, officially called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, for the failure, the government sources said. The ministry is examining materials collected from the Unification Church to make its final decision on whether to request the order to disband the group. In November last year, the ministry exercised its right to ask questions and request reports over some practices at the Unification Church for the first time under the religious corporations law on suspicion of law breaches by the group. So far, the ministry has requested the group on seven occasions to submit reports on its organizational management, assets, donations and lawsuits. The group submitted the reports and related materials by the deadlines on all occasions. But the government sources said that the Unification Church failed to respond properly in some cases. A representative officer of a religious group will be subject to a civil fine of up to 100,000 yen if the group fails to make a report or gives a false report in response to a question or a request made under the law. Education minister Keiko Nagaoka will soon consult the religious corporations council, an advisory body. If it approves, she will ask Tokyo District Court to impose the fine on the Unification Church. So far, the ministry and others have investigated the group by exercising the right to ask questions and request reports and by directly interviewing related people, including former members who made large donations. The ministry is scrutinizing the collected materials to establish facts about the group's practices to see whether the practices were organizational, malicious and continuous, satisfying the requirements for a dissolution order. END