September 26, 2023
TOKYO -- The Unification Church has published a protest against Japanese public broadcaster NHK, demanding that it stop airing and apologize for a program dealing with the religious group's recruitment methods.
NHK changed part of the program's title, which the group viewed as problematic, and aired it as scheduled. It is unusual for the Unification Church, now known formally as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, to demand the cancelation of a program before it is aired, and an expert pointed out that the group may have been seeking to discourage media coverage.
The program "Kikenna Sasayaki," or dangerous whispers, was aired late at night on Sept. 23. Based on court documents from a lawsuit filed against the church by a former female member -- a suit she won -- the program included a dramatization of past attempts to recruit believers, including hiding the group's name and door-to-door sales tactics disguised as charitable activities.
This screenshot from the Unification Church's webpage shows a letter of protest against the NHK program "Kikenna Sasayaki" (dangerous whispers).
Initially, the program was introduced on NHK's website under the title "Akuma no Sasayaki," or the devil's whispers. The Unification Church posted a letter of protest dated Sept. 21 on its website. At the time, the program title had already been changed to "Kikenna Sasayaki," but the church stated in the letter, "The program has already been introduced and publicized by multiple celebrities under the name 'Akuma no Sasayaki,' resulting in serious damage to our organization's reputation."
The letter also demanded that the program be canceled and an apology for phrases including, "victims whose lives have been ruined," which had originally been on the broadcaster website but have now been removed. The group claimed that the expressions "make it sound as if our organization is fraudulently inducing believers to join us and ruining their lives," and that the terminology is "clearly insulting."
Before the letter, a person believed to be an active believer wrote on "X," formally known as Twitter, that they had "called NHK in protest while crying loudly." On the other hand, once the group raised its objections, former believers and others wrote and shared posts calling for people to watch the program, and the show gained more attention.
Speaking to the Mainichi Shimbun, NHK's public relations bureau said of the program, "Based on the records of an actual court case, it attempts to clarify why people are captivated by illegal solicitation and why they lose their composure with these dangerous whispers, by using a reenactment and psychological analysis to show the mechanisms of the mind in that moment."
Regarding the circumstances surrounding the program title change, the PR bureau commented, "Sometimes the title is changed before the program is aired based on a comprehensive judgment."
Journalist Eito Suzuki, who is familiar with Unification Church issues, said, "The program used facts from the court documents, and it is not the kind of content that the religious group would usually ask to be canceled. Protests by the church have become more intense since (the government's) request (to the court) to issue an order to formally dissolve the organization. The latest move was probably aimed at making the media think, 'This group is troublesome, so let's not get involved with it.'"
(Japanese original by Hiroyuki Tanaka, Digital News Group)
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20230926/p2a/00m/0na/020000c
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