Coalition for Religious Freedom Update, August 9, 2011

Event at the Washington Times. Our educational event at the Washington Times July 13 continues to bear good fruit. The Baptist Press wire service carried a major story on the event, featuring the presentation of Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission president Barrett Duke. Baptist Press circulates to 40 state Baptist newspapers with a combined circulation of 1.16 million, and also partners with a number of other Christian and secular media outlets. The article focused on Dr. Duke’s call for “four achievable steps” promoting religious freedom, each of which is currently being considered as legislation by the US Congress. Read the article here.

ICSA and CESNUR. Japanese team member Shunsuke Uotani’s paper has now been posted on the CESNUR web site. His research conclusively proves that the majority of ex-UC members who sued the UC in the Sapporo “Lost Youth” compensation cases admitted that they were forcibly confined (or locked up) when they renounced their faith. This completely disproves the contention of the anti-UC lawyers that: “It is a plain fact that their [deprogramming victims] withdrawal from the church is not a result of forced renunciation through kidnapping and confinement.” Mr. Uotani’s paper is posted here.

Dr. James Richardson. The well known legal scholar and sociologist of religion Dr. James Richardson of the University of Nevada at Reno has published an important paper dealing with the faith-breaking issue. Entitled “Deprogramming: from private self-help to governmental organized repression,” it is published in the prestigious legal journal, Crime, Law and Social Change. The paper has an entire section dealing with Japan, confirming many of our reports. See article here: http://www.familyfed.org/news/index.php?id=284&page=1.

Victims Status: Unfortunately, I have to report that two more members (both sisters) were kidnapped recently in Japan. One seems to be holding strong, but the other has renounced her faith, at least for the time being. We went without an incident for several months in the wake of the earthquake, which seems to have disrupted the kidnapping operations temporarily. Our Japanese church is taking steps to protect members who may be vulnerable to abduction attempts. In the meantime, we are continuing to work with government and human rights organizations in both the US and Europe to press the Japanese authorities to uphold their own laws and protect our members’ human rights.

ICRF Web Site. Several important additions and updates have been made to the ICRF web site.

 Our report on the Washington Times event has been posted on the home page.  The Japanese victim association’s protest letter confronting the faith-breakers for their crimes has also been posted now.  New written statements by 21 victims have been posted here (in addition to 11 previous statements). And an additional 21 statements are in the final editing process. Many more are being collected and translated.

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