Mar 27, 2024

Japan court imposes fine on Unification Church



UCA News reporter
By UCA News reporter
March 27, 2024

A trial court in Japan has imposed a fine on the Unification Church for failing to respond to some of the questions related to its controversial collection of hefty donations from its members.

Tomihiro Tanaka, president of the Unification Church in Japan, was fined 100,000 Yen (around US$660) on March 26 for failing to answer more than 100 of some 500 questions, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) reported.

Judge Kenya Suzuki of the Tokyo District Court pointed out that "violation of law," which is a requirement for the dissolution order, "includes illegal acts under the Civil Code.”

"Torts have been recognized in such cases as the solicitation of donations made by believers,” Suzuki said citing the decisions of 22 other civil court judgments that recognized the responsibility of the church and its followers.

“It appears that illegal acts that violated the property rights and personal rights of many victims were repeatedly committed,” Suzuki added.

The Unification Church had conducted a “suspected” violation of laws and regulations and “harmed the public welfare," Suzuki noted in his judgment adding that the total amount of damage exceeds 1.5 billion Yen.

Suzuki had imposed the administrative penalty at the request of Japan’s education ministry which had reportedly questioned the group seven times during which it had allegedly refused to answer more than 100 questions, NHK reported.

The penalty imposed is the first such instance in connection with the government's authority of inquiry.

The church said that it would consider its “future response after confirming the details of the written decision,” NHK reported.

The Unification Church which was formally known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification came under heavy government scrutiny and public criticism following the assassination of former Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by Tetsuya Yamagami.

Yamagami shot and killed Abe on July 8, 2022, over his ties to the Unification Church and alleged economic hardships faced by his family due to hefty donations given by his mother to the church which is estimated to be around US$1 million.

The Tokyo District Court is also in the process of hearing a separate plea from the ministry of education requesting the dissolution of the church.

Meanwhile, state officials have lauded the court judgment as proof of the validity of the claims that it has submitted before the court to provide closure to the church’s victims.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said he believed that “the court has recognized the state's claim” that the church had refused to answer the questions from the government, NHK reported.

Hayashi said that the ministry “will continue to deal appropriately with” the Unification Church-related issues.

Masahito Moriyama, Japan’s minister of education, welcomed the judgment, saying that the court has recognized the ministry’s claim that the right to collect reports and ask questions is legal.

“We will continue to demand that the former Unification Church properly respond to the lawful 'right to collect reports' and ask questions,” Moriyama said.

Professor Hajime Tajika of Kinki University, an expert in constitutional law and is an expert on religious corporation law, said the penalty imposed on the church was a boost to the government’s proceedings against it.

https://www.ucanews.com/news/japan-court-imposes-fine-on-unification-church/104593?fbclid=IwAR3aN6SueeXPlHBWrzQr5vqEvM8f9IlQZM42VdheFhMdkciVZCe_TsbZ3rE

CultNEWS101 Articles: 3/27/2024 (Sisters of the Good Shepherd, Clergy Sexual Abuse, Gloriavale, Docuseries, New Zealand, Scientology, Legal, Apollo Quiboloy, Philippines)

Sisters of the Good Shepherd, Clergy Sexual Abuse, GloriavaleDocuseries, New Zealand, Scientology, Legal, Apollo QuiboloyPhilippines
"More than three dozen people allege in two lawsuits filed Tuesday that they were sexually abused as children at a Maryland residential program for youths that closed in 2017 following similar allegations.

In the separate lawsuits, attorneys detailed decades of alleged abuse of children by staff members of the Good Shepherd Services behavioral health treatment center, which had billed itself as a therapeutic, supportive environment for Maryland's most vulnerable youth.

The program was founded in 1864 by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic religious order focused on helping women and girls. It began at a facility in Baltimore before moving to its most recent campus just outside the city.

Many of the plaintiffs — almost all of them women — reported being injected with sedatives that made it more difficult for them to resist the abuse. Others said their abusers, including nuns and priests employed by the center, bribed them with food and gifts or threatened them with violence and loss of privileges.

The claims were filed against the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services and Department of Human Services, agencies that contracted with Good Shepherd and referred children there for treatment. The lawsuits also named the state Department of Health, which was tasked with overseeing residential facilities. The Sisters of the Good Shepherd religious order wasn't a named defendant in either suit.

In a joint statement Tuesday afternoon, the three state agencies said they had not yet been served with the court papers.

"However, the Departments of Health, Human Services and Juvenile Services work to ensure the safety and well-being of all children and youth placed in state care. We take allegations of sexual abuse of children in our care seriously," the statement said.

Many of the children referred to Good Shepherd were in foster care or involved in the state's juvenile justice system.

"The state of Maryland sent the most vulnerable children in its care to this facility and then failed to protect them," said Jerome Block, an attorney representing 13 plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits filed Tuesday."
"Every person who has left Gloriavale has family or loved ones still inside. That's a fact. And the majority of them want to do something to help. There is a resistance movement growing as more people leave and they all want to do their bit to expose the truth about life inside Gloriavale.

We met dozens of leavers in the course of making this documentary and could have cast it many, many times over with all the warm, smart, perceptive people we met. We are absolutely thrilled with the cast we landed with and can't wait for New Zealanders to have their misconceptions about what people from Gloriavale are like totally turned upside down.

The Gloriavale Leavers' Support Trust estimates they have helped about 200 people leave in the past 10 years – but to put that in perspective, the average Gloriavale family has about 12 children. There are about 600 people still living inside Gloriavale – about 350 of them are children – so there are still more people living inside than out.

There is a growing resistance movement on the outside that casually call themselves the 'Underground Network'. These are neighbours, former members, lawyers, media and just members of the public that want to help. To leave Gloriavale is much like being a refugee – most don't have bank accounts, drivers' licences, passports.

Many have never even handled money, never caught a bus. One of our contributors had only ever been to Greymouth a handful of times in her life for dental appointments – that was her only tiny window to the outside world, so she had never seen phones or ATMs or escalators.

She had never had her hair cut, worn anything but her uniform from birth, hadn't even been to the supermarket. So to say leaving is difficult is a huge understatement.

Add to that the psychological barriers they have – they are raised to believe that leaving means eternal damnation which is a fate worse than death. So the process of leaving can take many years."

Scoop: Press Release from TVNZ
New Zealand's most extreme religious cult, Gloriavale, and the true stories of people attempting to break free, are the subject of a brand-new docuseries – Escaping Utopia – screening this March on TVNZ.

In a worldwide premiere, screening across three captivating nights, Escaping Utopia documents the intricate planning that goes into clandestine escapes from Gloriavale – with unprecedented access to its inner workings, the unravelling of its leadership and the pursuit of justice by the group of passionate and dedicated people known as The Gloriavale Leavers' Support Trust.

Shocking new information is revealed from former and current members of the community who have never gone on the record before – and who through their accounts, seek answers to some of the most crucial questions in the dark history of Gloriavale.

The three-part investigation premieres Sunday 24 March, 8.30pm on TVNZ 1 and TVNZ+ and continues Tuesday 25 and Wednesday 26.

Escaping Utopia is produced by Warner Bros. International Television Production New Zealand in association with the New Zealand Government's Premium Productions for International Audiences Fund and made with the support of NZ on Air. The series is directed by Natalie Malcon and Justin Pemberton, with Philippa Rennie as Executive Producer.
"Leah Remini's lawsuit against the Church of Scientology for defamation and harassment will survive, though only just, after an LA Superior Court judge struck down the majority of the actress' complaint on Tuesday.

Church of Scientology spokesperson Karin Pouw called the ruling "a resounding victory for the Church and free speech," adding in an email, "the Church is entitled to its attorney fees and will be seeking them."

Remini, who gained fame as a co-star on the sitcom "King of Queens," was a member of the Church of Scientology for more than 35 years, starting at the age of eight. She estimates to have spent more than $5 million on classes, services and donations to the organization. When she broke with Scientology in 2013, she soon became one of the church's most vocal critics, largely through a memoir, "Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology," and a TV docuseries, "Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath."

The church responded to Remini in kind, producing a slew of videos and articles attacking her as a racist and bigot, suggesting that she had inspired hate crimes against Scientologists. The headline of one article read, "As the World Remembers the Holocaust, Bigot Leah Remini Inspires Praise of Hitler."

In August 2023, Remini filed a suit accusing the church of orchestrating a vicious online campaign against her, where she said, "for the past ten years, Ms. Remini has been stalked, surveilled, harassed, threatened, intimidated, and, moreover, has been the victim of intentional malicious and fraudulent rumors via hundreds of Scientology-controlled and -coordinated social media accounts that exist solely to intimidate and spread misinformation."

Remini also accused the church of having her followed and surveilled by private detectives.

The church filed an anti-SLAPP motion — a legal maneuver used to quickly throw out suits that are meant to discourage free speech or public participation — arguing that the church and its members were simply fighting Remini's "hate speech" with their own speech. As for surveilling Remini, the church said that was part of its "pre-litigation stance" in anticipation of Remini's lawsuit.

In his 37-page ruling, Superior Court Judge Randolph Hammock agreed to strike more than a dozen paragraphs of Remini's complaint as untimely, finding that those claims took place before Aug. 2, 2022 and it was too late to sue over them. The judge also struck down most of the defamation claims, finding that most of them were not false assertions of fact."
"Defenders of controversial preacher Apollo Quiboloy at the Senate have failed to muster enough signatures to block the contempt order against him, placing the self-claimed "Son of God" at the mercy of looming arrest if he does not respond to a show cause order within 48 hours.

Quiboloy's Senate defense crumbled on Tuesday after only five senators signed the written objection to the contempt order against the Kingdom of Jesus Christ founder, Sen. Robin Padilla said. This is three signatures short of the eight required to overturn the contempt ruling."

" ... Quiboloy has been cited for contempt by two committees at the House and the Senate for his continued refusal to personally appear in hearings concerning his actions as KOJC leader and founder of KOJC's media partner, SMNI.

The Senate women and gender equality committee is currently investigating the sexual crimes allegedly committed by Quiboloy and other KOJC leaders, while the House legislative franchises committee is deliberating on a bill that seeks to cancel the legislative franchise of SMNI after it allegedly aired content that violates its franchise terms."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery


CultEducationEvents.com

CultMediation.com   

Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.

CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.

CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources.

Facebook

Flipboard

Twitter

Instagram

Cults101.org resources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations and related topics.


Selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view in order to promote dialogue.


Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.


Ex- Gloriavale couple share their unique love story

REAL LIFE
MARCH 27, 2024

Despite an extreme campaign to drive them apart, Rosie and Elijah Overcomer escaped to a new life together.

It takes immense bravery to leave the confines of an insular, tightly knit community like Gloriavale. Especially when it’s the only life you’ve ever known and you’ve been told since birth that the community is your sanctuary from an outside world that is inherently evil and dangerous.

Rosanna, known as Rosie, and Elijah Overcomer are second-generation Gloriavale members who, 11 years ago, found the courage to leave the reclusive religious sect.

Along with other former and current Gloriavale members, they’re sharing their compelling story in TVNZ’s documentary series Escaping Utopia, which offers a glimpse into the inner workings of the community, and reveals shocking new information about the allegations of abuse, control and exploitation that have plagued it for years.

At one stage, Rosie, 37, and Elijah, 34, were tapped for future leadership positions at Gloriavale by its founder and former leader, the late Hopeful Christian. However, in 2013, the couple decided to start a new life outside the West Coast community, following an extreme campaign by the sect’s leaders to drive them apart.

“We first started questioning things when we got married and had our first baby,” reveals Rosie. “Then everything was fast-tracked after our third child arrived.”

Elijah was removed from Gloriavale when he confronted Hopeful about his criminal conviction for sexual abuse. This led to Rosie and their three children being whisked away on a small aeroplane and put into hiding in a remote location where she wasn’t allowed contact with Elijah or the outside world for six weeks.

The dramatic story of their escape from the grip of the community’s leaders and the only life they ever knew unfolds in the second episode of this thrilling series.

One thing the Gloriavale leaders did get incredibly right, however, was the arranged marriage of Rosie and Elijah, who were 22 and 19 at the time.

Today, their deep love for each other is evident as they chat with Woman’s Day from the Fairlie farm where they are successful sharemilkers. The go-getting couple lease another farm in Fairlie, as well as one on the West Coast, where they run a second dairy herd with Elijah’s sister Heavenly.

Rosie and Elijah are happy, relaxed and speak with pride about their family of six gorgeous children, aged from 14 to five, who each have big dreams of their own.

The Overcomer whānau has come a long way in the last decade, but their journey hasn’t always been easy. Like many former Gloriavale members, Rosie and Elijah faced numerous challenges as they started to forge their own identities separate from the confines of the community.

As well as grappling with feelings of isolation, questioning everything they believed to be true and the guilt of leaving family members behind, Rosie and Elijah had to learn to adjust to – and trust – the outside world and the people in it, recalls Elijah.

“It’s hard to have confidence in your own decision-making when you’ve been taught your ideas aren’t good and everything comes from the leaders,” he explains. “We were told in Gloriavale that if good things happen, it is the Devil trying to look after you, so even when people were doing nice things for us on the outside, it was hard to trust.”

Rosie and Elijah’s first stop after leaving the community was Christchurch, where some of their family already lived.

Elijah got a firewood delivery and lawn-mowing job, but after managing the deer farm at Gloriavale, he was keen to get into farming. He applied for around 40 jobs and finally secured work on a deer farm in Timaru.

“We were happy to go to Timaru, where we didn’t know anyone, so we could figure out who we were, what we were into and suss out our lives.”

A large farmhouse was provided with the job. The Overcomer family moved in with their few boxes of possessions and very little furniture, not even a fridge. “It was the most empty house you’d ever find,” Rosie recalls.

She faced significant adjustments in the early days too, such as learning to be a mother without the support of other community members and adapting to practical tasks, like using a cellphone, Eftpos card and online banking. Making friends was also difficult, she admits.

“I didn’t want to get too close to people in the beginning because I thought they’d cut me off as soon as they realised I didn’t believe the same things they did. I didn’t want to go through that hurt again, and felt really lost and lonely for a long time.”

After a year in Timaru, the family moved to Fairlie, where Elijah and Rosie started to climb the sharemilking ladder.

“We aim to produce as much food as we can sustainably and are close to reaching our ultimate goal of owning our own farm,” Elijah says proudly. “When I was managing the deer farm at Gloriavale, they told me I’d never make it. Ever since, I’ve been motivated to prove them wrong.”

Despite the many uncertainties they’ve faced, Rosie, Elijah, and their children are thriving. The family has a large circle of friends, with 200 joining them at a 2023 party to celebrate 10 years since leaving Gloriavale. Elijah plays rugby for a local team and Rosie enjoyed her first season of social netball last year.

“We love watching our kids’ sports too and seeing all the opportunities they have to give different things a go,” she says.

 
The doco shows actual goings-on at Gloriavale.

The couple are the only former members to be on the Gloriavale Leavers’ Support Trust, which assists former members to become independent and integrate into local communities, says Rosie.

“Our role is to be a voice and advocate for our people who have left, and those still in Gloriavale who might want to leave or need help and support.”

Despite everything they’ve been through, Rosie and Elijah remain hopeful that real change at Gloriavale is possible, brought about by people like them sharing their stories, and the ongoing scrutiny from media, the police and government agencies.

“There’s a lot more that needs to happen, but progress is being made,” says Elijah.

As they look ahead to their own bright future, the couple want to continue to inspire others to understand their own value.

“We believe that on the day of our birth, God gives us more gifts than we can possibly imagine and we spend the rest of our lives unwrapping them,” Elijah explains. “That’s one of our life mottos we love to pass on.”

Escaping Utopia premieres Sunday 24 March, 8.30pm on TVNZ 1 and TVNZ+, continuing Tuesday and Wednesday.

https://www.nowtolove.co.nz/

Mar 26, 2024

Kenya beings handing over 429 bodies of doomsday cult victims to families: "They are only skeletons"

Kenya beings handing over 429 bodies of doomsday cult victims to families: "They are only skeletons"
CBS/AP
March 26, 2024

The Kenyan government on Tuesday began handing over 429 bodies of members of a doomsday cult at the center of a legal case that has shocked the country.

Exhumed bodies from a vast rural area in coastal Kenya have shown signs of starvation and strangulation. Cult leader Paul Mackenzie is accused of asking his followers to starve themselves to death to meet Jesus and now faces charges that include murder.

One tearful family received four bodies that were loaded into a hearse from a morgue in the Indian Ocean town of Malindi, said an AFP correspondent at the scene.

They are the first bodies to be handed over to their relatives for burial after months of painstaking work to identify them using DNA.

"It is a relief that we finally have the bodies but it is also disheartening that they are only skeletons," William Ponda, 32, told AFP, saying he has lost his mother, brother, sister-in-law and nephew in the tragedy.

"I do not have any hope that we will find the other members of the family."

Authorities are using DNA testing to help identify bodies and their families. On Tuesday, the first bodies were handed over to relatives. Emotions ran high at the Malindi mortuary as families collected loved ones for reburial. Some wailed, overwhelmed.

Mackenzie and dozens of his associates were charged in February with the torture and murder of 191 children. The trial begins April 23. Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki has declared Mackenzie's Good News International Ministries a criminal organized group.

Mackenzie is serving a separate one-year prison sentence after being found guilty of operating a film studio and producing films without a valid license.

Some outraged Kenyans have asked how authorities didn't notice any sign of the mass deaths underway.

The Kenya Human Rights Commission last week said police failed to act on reports that could have prevented the deaths in the remote Shakahola area. Several reports had been filed at police stations by people whose relatives had entered the forested area.

The case emerged last year when police rescued 15 emaciated parishioners from Mackenzie's church in Kilifi county in Kenya's southeast. Four died after the group was taken to a hospital.

Last year, Kenyan President William Ruto compared the starvation deaths to terrorist acts.

"What we are seeing ... is akin to terrorism," Ruto said. "Mr. Makenzi ... pretends and postures as a pastor when in fact he is a terrible criminal."

The case has prompted calls for tighter control of fringe denominations in a country with a troubling history of self-declared pastors and cults that have dabbled in criminality.

In 2022, the body of a British woman who died at the house of a different cult leader while on holiday in Kenya was exhumed, the family's lawyer said. Luftunisa Kwandwalla, 44, was visiting the coastal city of Mombasa when she died in August 2020, and was buried a day later, but her family has claimed foul play.

AFP contributed to this report.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kenya-429-bodies-doomsday-cult-victims-families/