Aum's former poster boy Joyu finds a new gig

Japan Today
October 3, 2018


Aum Supreme Truth guru Shoko Asahara and a dozen other top leaders of the doomsday cult went to the gallows during the summer, but one prominent cult member remains among the living. And in the news.

At the height of his celebrity, Fumihiro Joyu could be described as Aum's poster boy. Bright, well spoken and photogenic, with a degree in engineering from Waseda University, the Fukuoka native served as a magnet to attract new female adherents. He also debunked the image of Aum acolytes as brainwashed automatons. After the subway attacks he frequently appeared on TV and in abrasive question-and-answer sessions with reporters he gave as good as he got.

Most important, Joyu had an airtight alibi that absolved him from complicity in the March 20, 1995 toxic nerve gas attack on the Tokyo Metro. He had been assigned to Aum's office in Moscow, engaged in proselytizing efforts in Russia at the time. Nevertheless, authorities arrested him on suspicion of document forgery in October 1995 and he was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison. Upon release, Joyu became the de facto head of what was left of the cult, renamed Aleph. Most of the time he stayed out of the public eye.

At age 55, Joyu has been unable to wean himself from lure of the spiritual world. In 2007 he broke away from Aleph to organize his own group, called The Circle of Rainbow Light. He was recently in the TV news again, commenting after the execution of guru Asahara and other cult members found guilty of various capital crimes.

Now, reports Shukan Jitsuwa (Oct 18), Joyu's diversifying. According to materials distributed during an appearance at a recent seminar, he is peddling such merchandise as incense and other Buddhist paraphernalia. The materials also invited people to partake of his services as a fortuneteller.

Utilizing traditional Indian astrology, Joyu will make prognostications about the future for a fee of 20,000 yen.

When asked if that fee could be considered expensive or cheap, another fortuneteller -- perhaps reluctant to speak negatively of a fellow member of the profession -- said, "Considering the amount of 'data processing' that Joyu will do, I suppose the charge is appropriate."

A female office worker who attended Joyu's seminar was quoted as saying, "Joyu-san had seemed very scholarly, so I was surprised when he suddenly turned into a salesman and began pitching fortunetelling and good-luck charms. It's no different from the kind of hokum that other new religions do."

Joyu has reiterated that his group disavows Asahara, and has also broken off all ties to Aum's current incarnation, called Aleph. Moreover, he denies his group is a religious organization, describing it a "Buddhist philosophy study group."

That still raises questions over why, all of a sudden, his group has become so entrepreneurial.

A spokesperson for the group replied, "There is nothing sudden about it. Mr Joyu had been studying Indian astrology previously, and had even told fortunes when he was involved with Aleph. I suppose some people were surprised because this is the first time he made the information available in writing."

In the background, in September 2017, the Tokyo District Court ruled in favor of Joyu's group, invalidating an investigation of his group by the Public Security Agency. (The state did not appeal the verdict.) A person in the agency remarked bitterly that the verdict effectively concealed the "real situation." Another view is that following Asahara's execution, people are less likely to associate Joyu with Asahara, which gives him free rein to engage in activities more openly.

Shukan Jitsuwa also offers readers a taste of one of Joyu's recent prognostications. "He predicted that 'Abenomics and the Tokyo Olympics are creating another real estate bubble, which will soon be over,'" said a person who attended the seminar. "But he didn't say what's going to happen afterwards."

Well, the writer concludes sarcastically, that prediction is so obvious just about any Tom, Dick or Harry can make it. So come on, Joyu-san, how about telling us what's really going to happen to the Japanese economy after the post-Olympic bubble collapses?

https://japantoday.com/category/features/kuchikomi/aum%27s-former-poster-boy-joyu-finds-a-new-gig

A chronology of doomsday cult and its founder

Japan Times
July 26, 2018

The following is a chronology of events related to the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult and its founder, Shoko Asahara, whose real name was Chizuo Matsumoto:

March 2, 1955 — Matsumoto is born in Kumamoto Prefecture.

February 1984 — Asahara forms group Aum Shinsen no Kai.

July 1987 — Aum Shinsen no Kai is renamed Aum Shinrikyo.

November 4, 1989 — Tsutsumi Sakamoto, a lawyer helping people with complaints against Aum, is slain along with his wife and 1-year-old son at their Yokohama home.

February 1990 — Asahara and 24 other members of Aum run in a House of Representatives election. All of them lose.

June 27, 1994 — Aum members release sarin in a residential district of Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, killing eight people and injuring about another 600.

March 20, 1995 — Aum members release sarin on Tokyo subway trains, killing 13 people and injuring more than 6,000.

May 16, 1995 — Asahara is arrested.

April 24, 1996 — The trial of Asahara begins.

February 2000 — Aum renames itself Aleph.

March 13, 2003 — While being questioned for the first time in court, Asahara refuses to speak.

April 24, 2003 — Prosecutors demand Asahara be given the death penalty.

February 27, 2004 — Tokyo District Court sentences Asahara to death.

September 15, 2006 — Supreme Court finalizes Asahara’s death sentence.

May 2007 — Former Aum spokesman Fumihiro Joyu launches splinter group Hikari no Wa.

June 2008 — Law enacted to provide Aum victims and relatives with government benefits.

December 31, 2011 — Aum fugitive Makoto Hirata surrenders to police.

June 2012 — Aum fugitives Katsuya Takahashi and Naoko Kikuchi are arrested.

January 18, 2018 — Supreme Court rejects Takahashi’s appeal, settling his life sentence and ending all trials related to the cult.

March 14-15, 2018 — Seven of 13 former Aum members on death row are transferred from a Tokyo detention center to other facilities.

July 6, 2018 — Asahara and six other Aum members on death row are executed.

July 26, 2018 — Six remaining former Aum members on death row are executed.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/07/26/national/crime-legal/key-events-related-aum-shinrikyo-cult/

My Experience Reporting on the Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack

Shogo Takahashi
NHK WORLD
July 12, 2018

The former leader of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult and 6 of his past followers were executed in early July. Shoko Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, masterminded the sarin gas attack on Tokyo’s subway system in 1995 which killed 13 people and injured more than 6,000.

NHK World Executive Shogo Takahashi reflects on his experience covering the cult and how the attack affected Japanese society.

Tokyo Plunged into Confusion

Aum was the worst cult in Japanese criminal history. It sought to subvert the state by mounting a chemical weapons attack on workers in Tokyo's central business district, where many government offices are located.

March 20th 1995. It was a beautiful spring day in Tokyo. As a city reporter, I was heading for the Tsukiji fish market to cover another story when the subway stopped abruptly. I got off, and heard a station attendant explaining that a bomb may have been planted on one of the trains running ahead. I took a taxi to the market, and saw a number of fire engines and ambulances surging past the cab.

When I arrived, a breaking news report was saying that attacks using white powder took place at multiple subway stations. So I headed back to Tsukiji subway station, but police officers and fire fighters on the scene told me not to go below. They said many passengers had stumbled out of subway cars after arriving at the station, and that some people were unconscious. Roads were blocked in a wide area from Tsukiji to Ginza, and chemical corps of the Self-Defense Forces drove up to the station. They put on gas masks and went down to the subway station carrying tanks for decontaminating the sarin nerve gas. I was joined by another reporter and we went to work covering the disaster.

Shaking the Sense of Safety in Japanese Society

Following the sarin attack, it spurred rumors and speculation that more attacks were coming, spreading fear across the country. Unknown back then was how right those fears were.

It would later be revealed that the cult had plans for a cyanide attack in one of Tokyo's biggest subway stations, Shinjuku. Luckily, those plans were foiled.

But the whole thing cast doubt on the ability of the country's police force. The organized criminal group perpetrated crimes for many years in Japan, a country seen as one of the safest in the world. Aum eventually carried out the indiscriminate attack on the subway system. Its criminal history is unprecedented. The sarin attacks showed the police were not able to respond to that kind of terrorist threat. They were ill-equipped and unprepared. They also didn’t realize the type of radicalization that was going on with the cult. The National Police Agency admitted in its report on the cult that it had failed to prevent Aum from committing crimes conducted using advanced science. The poison gases they manufactured -- sarin and VX -- normally require state government apparatus to create. It added that the organization operated under the guise of a religious group in an environment shut off from other parts of society.

Following the Aum crimes, the police beefed up their units dealing with chemical weapons as well as systems to investigate terrorism and other organized crimes.

On Trial

When the Aum trials had begun, I was a court reporter and I covered the trials at the Tokyo District Court for 5 years.

Aum-related trials took a long time to complete, as nearly 200 members of the group were indicted for their alleged involvement in crimes.

It was striking to hear for several years on end members say with deep remorse that they didn't join the cult to commit murders. The constant theme was that they were brainwashed by the cult leader and in court, away from his control, were devastated by what they had done. I remember one cult member was talking about how two subway employees died while trying to remove bags of sarin from a train car. He burst into tears over what he had done and how he had listened to the orders of Matsumoto.

The widow of one of the subway workers started to cry as well. The only noise in the courtroom was the sobbing of the cult member and the widow. It was an intensely emotional scene that I will never forget.

Promising Youths Brainwashed

I covered trial hearings for all 13 Aum death-row convicts. They had different backgrounds but most of them were well-educated. Five of them who played a role in the making and spraying of the sarin gas were elite scientists, with some of them having been expected to make great contributions to Japan's science world. Most of the Aum followers who were found guilty joined the cult in the 1980s and early 90s, when Japan was experiencing the bubble economy. Aum lured people living in the shadow of the booming economy -- that is, young people who felt isolated and were keen to change their lives.

Matsumoto deceived or brainwashed them, using drugs from time to time. All the death-row convicts say Matsumoto was in control of their minds.

It's fair to say that the execution of the former Aum leader is a milestone in the cases of many organized crimes perpetrated by the cult. And the cult still exists in the form of splinter groups. Two splinter groups use other names than Aum cult. They are under surveillance and must report their assets and, if necessary, accept onsite inspections. Concern is spreading among residents around the groups' facilities. Observers say it's still too early to say that the Aum problem is history.

Preventing a Recurrence

What we must learn from the cult's crimes is this: The group was nothing unusual when it started. But it’s highly educated young members got under the influence of mind control and stopped thinking for themselves and committed crimes to follow the cult's orders. It’s something I think that must not be forgotten in Japan. How easy it was for seemingly normal, bright people to go down a path to terrorism.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/nhknewsline/backstories/reportingonthesarinattack/

On the hanging of Shoko Asahara, Japan's nerve-gas guru

His case festered in the justice system for 23 years

The Economist
July 12, 2018

ON THE morning of March 20th 1995 your columnist arrived at work to see the pavements outside his office covered with poisoned commuters. Some were unconscious. Some were twitching or choking, like soldiers in a Wilfred Owen poem. Men in hazmat suits were everywhere. Office workers sat in a nearby park repeating like a mantra: “It’s so terrifying.”

It was the worst terrorist attack in modern Japanese history. Members of Aum Shinrikyo, an apocalyptic cult, had released nerve gas on the Tokyo subway. Their targets were crowded trains that converged on Kasumigaseki, in the heart of Japan’s government district. The aim was to kill officials on their way into work, and somehow hasten the end of the world. Twenty-three years later, on July 6th, Shoko Asahara, the bearded guru who masterminded this atrocity, was hanged, along with six accomplices.

He was the first truly modern terrorist. As David Kaplan and Andrew Marshall note in “The Cult at the End of the World”, Aum was the first group without state patronage to make biochemical weapons on a large scale. “A college education, some basic lab equipment, recipes downloaded from the internet—for the first time, ordinary people can create extraordinary weapons.”

Mr Asahara’s followers included scientists and engineers, one of whom worked for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, an arms manufacturer, and helped the cult steal secrets from it. Aum built a weapons factory inside its compound near Mount Fuji, where it stockpiled the ingredients for enough sarin (a nerve agent) to kill millions. It was due only to incompetence that the death toll on the subway was just 13, with more than 6,000 injured. The terrorists used bags of liquid sarin, which they pierced with sharpened umbrellas. The liquid took time to evaporate and spread, giving thousands a chance to escape. The attack made policymakers around the world fret that an equally homicidal but more effective terrorist group might one day obtain weapons of mass destruction—a fear that contributed to the Iraq war in 2003.

Mr Asahara’s teachings were plainly loopy. He took a mish-mash of Buddhist and Hindu precepts, stirred in a bit of Nostradamus, added a huge dollop of reverence for himself and charged acolytes their life’s savings for devotional tapes, books and guidance. He made them fast until they were weak, drink his bathwater until they felt sick and wear electrode caps on their heads to jolt them into enlightenment. He often predicted the end of the world, by sarin or an American nuclear strike on Tokyo.

At its peak, Aum had perhaps 10,000 members in Japan (and more overseas). Some people wonder: why did so many bright young Japanese fall for such an obvious charlatan? Mr Asahara, a former seller of quack medicines, ordered his followers to subsist on boiled vegetables while he gorged on prawn tempura and drove a white Rolls-Royce. Sociologists speculated that there was something unique about the empty materialism and stifling conformity of Japanese society that drove youngsters to look for an alternative. The guru’s teachings may have been utter nonsense, but was modern Japan “able to offer…a more viable narrative?” asked Haruki Murakami, an angstful novelist.

A terrorist Tartuffe

Yet there is not much uniquely Japanese about Aum. Human beings, once they are rich enough not to worry where the next meal is coming from, often fret about the meaning of life. Charismatic gurus offer answers. “The Master Asahara is like Buddha,” a believer told Banyan after the nerve-gas attack. “He feels other people’s pain more than any other human being. He can teach you to escape from the pain that is caused by human desires.”

All countries have cults, and being well schooled is no protection against brainwashing. The techniques that Aum used—isolating people in cells, subjecting them to physical duress and sleep deprivation, making them shave their heads and cast off their old identities, telling them to empty their minds and endlessly repeat mystical chants—have been used by countless other groups throughout history to break down resistance to the leader’s will. And once they have submitted, true believers can sometimes be convinced to commit appalling crimes: think of the 276 children murdered by the Jim Jones cult, of Islamic State drowning infidels in cages, or of centuries of atrocities perpetrated in the names of Jesus, Allah and even the Buddha.

The most distinctively Japanese part of Mr Asahara’s story is how he was brought to justice. At first, he wasn’t. Mindful of how the old military regime persecuted the pious, Japan’s police long treated religious groups with kid gloves. They left Aum alone even as evidence mounted that it was kidnapping people and murdering critics. The subway attack came as the cops were belatedly poised to take action, and was partly aimed at stopping them. (The National Police Agency is near Kasumigaseki.)

When the police finally moved, they did so with overwhelming force. Two days after the subway attack, 2,500 of them raided a dozen cult properties with riot gear, gas masks and caged canaries. (With a straight face, a spokesman said they were investigating a kidnapping.) They arrested Aum acolytes for jaywalking and bicycle theft, and questioned them for weeks to find out where Mr Asahara was hiding. (Suspects can be held for 23 days without charge in Japan.) They eventually found him in a crawl-space in a building they had already raided several times.

It then took 23 years to hang him. The outcome of his trial was never in doubt: the conviction rate in Japanese courts is over 99% and there were literally warehouses full of evidence against him. Yet his first trial lasted seven years—like many in Japan, it was not held on consecutive days. His appeals dragged on until 2006. He lingered another 12 years on death row, never knowing each morning whether he would be hanged that day. This is how Japan treats the condemned. It is not how anyone should be treated, not even a monster like Mr Asahara.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline "Death of a charlatan"


https://www.economist.com/asia/2018/07/14/on-the-hanging-of-shoko-asahara-japans-nerve-gas-guru?fsrc=rss%7Casi

Aleph members instructed to follow Asahara

NHK WORLD
July 13, 2018

Teaching materials obtained by NHK show that Aleph, a renamed successor to the Aum Shinrikyo cult, is trying to make its members faithfully follow the teachings of executed leader Shoko Asahara. His real name was Chizuo Matsumoto.

NHK acquired copies of 3 books and 2 CDs distributed by Aleph to its members several years ago.

One of the books is titled "Precious words that make the wishes of new members come true." It begins with the written passage "I'm Shoko Asahara. You have finally joined us."

Another passage reads "Great demons, primarily media outlets, control the world. I will confront the demons and crush them, and I will never fail to attain my ultimate enlightenment and nirvana."

The book calls for reciting mantras at least 300,000 times. It repeatedly refers to such words as "practice" and "salvation."

A former member of Aum Shinrikyo claims to be in contact with a follower of Aleph. He left the cult after it committed criminal acts.

The man says Aleph members still follow Matsumoto's teachings and that the basic tenets they believe in have not changed.

A professor of psychology at Rissho University has been researching the cult.

Kimiaki Nishida says Aleph is evidently using the materials to make its members deify Matsumoto. The professor says it is tantamount to ordering them to follow the former leader's teachings.

Nishida says the teachings of the two groups are identical. He adds that Aleph shows no sign of remorse for the crimes and apparently has no intention to apologize to the victims.

Aleph has not responded to NHK's request for comments on the teaching materials.

Matsumoto was executed along with 6 of his former disciples last week. Aum Shinrikyo engaged in acts of terror, including the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system.

The Public Security Intelligence Agency says it believes Aleph is the same sort of threat as Aum Shinrikyo owing to its reverence for Matsumoto. The agency has been inspecting Aleph's facilities as part of its effort to monitor the group.



https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180713_04/

Ex-Aum cult member on death row calls founder 'criminal' in memoir

JapanToday
Dec. 18, 2016

Ex-Aum cult member on death row calls founder 'criminal' in memoir

TOKYO —
A former senior member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult who is on death row has described the founder and “guru” he once revered, Shoko Asahara, as a “criminal” in a recently published memoir.

Tomomasa Nakagawa, convicted for his role in producing sarin used in the deadly nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system on March 20, 1995, said in the six-page article in the November edition of Japanese magazine Chemistry Today that Asahara transformed what was otherwise a religious group into one that produced chemical weapons and perpetrated murder.

The terror attack on the subway system killed 13 and left more than 6,000 people injured.

In the memoir, Nakagawa, 54, referred to the founder as “Mr Asahara” and said he “chose those who deeply trusted him and ordered them to take actions” such as committing murder and manufacturing chemical weapons.

He said Asahara’s “ability to lead yoga and meditation was extremely high” and that none of the cult members, including himself, imagined they would become involved in such actions as killing when they joined the group.

Nakagawa’s death sentence was finalized in 2011. The 61-year-old Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, is also still on death row.

His memoir also carried a personal apology to victims of the attack, as well as details of sarin production.

Nakagawa decided to write the article after being encouraged by Anthony Tu, a Colorado State University emeritus professor and toxicologist researching a string of incidents involving the cult. Tu, 86, has been visiting Nakagawa while in prison since 2011.

Nakagawa recounted that after succeeding in manufacturing about 30 kilograms of sarin compound in February 1994, they spread about 12 liters of it in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture in June that year. This eventually resulted in a “major incident,” he said.

Aum Shinrikyo is also known for having staged a sarin gas attack in a residential area of Matsumoto in central Japan on June 27, 1994, which killed eight people.

In producing sarin, one needs to have graduate school-level knowledge and experience in chemistry, and special equipment and systems must be in place to treat those who may have been poisoned by sarin, Nakagawa said.

He added, however, that it is hard now to obtain raw materials for sarin production and ruled out the possibility of another terror attack with sarin in Japan.

“If the investigative authorities pay close attention, it would be nearly impossible for such an act to be carried out,” Nakagawa said.

Death sentences have been finalized for 10 members of the cult in connection with the attack and other crimes, while sentences of life in prison have been finalized for four others.

In 2000, Aum Shinrikyo was renamed Aleph. In 2007, senior Alegh member Fumihiro Joyu left the group to establish a separate group—Hikarinowa, or the Circle of Rainbow.

https://www.japantoday.com/smartphone/view/crime/ex-aum-cult-member-on-death-row-calls-founder-criminal-in-memoir