Our Study Centre has dealt many times with media campaigns in which a "criminal" fact is arbitrarily linked to a religious minority and used as a pretext to insert it in an allusive information context that prompts the reader to get an idea of the organization as if it were "controversial", involved in "dark plots" and would be dangerous for the individual or society.
Faced with these cases, which are repeated and affect minorities that are very different from each other, our task is to counteract the disinformation and promote objective and documented knowledge on minorities, whether religious or not, present in our territory and in the world.
This release concerns another serious case of disinformation. In these dramatic days for Japan, after the assassination of Shinzo Abe, many Italian media have spread the news that seriously damage the image of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification ("Unification Church") to which the mother of Tetsuya Yamaga is affiliated.
It seems that the latter hated the organization because of a "donation" that the mother had given to it. We also learn that, the night before the assassination, Yamagami had tested his self-produced weapon at a building that was previously used as a church of the FFWPU, but without causing victims.
In recent days, dozens of Italian newspapers have circulated several very low-level articles on the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Here are some examples of titles:
· The Unification Church and the links with the murder of Shinzo Abe. A former adept speaks.
· Unification Church, what does it have to do with Shinzo Abe / killer "It ruined my mother".
· Abe- "Moonies", what relations between politics and the Unification Church? Assassin considered that former prime minister was connected with it.
· In the assassination of Shinzo Abe, the "Unification Church" emerges. A fanatical organization that has a very powerful leader and that has ruined the Killer's mother ... "
In these and other articles we find incorrect information or information dating back to 30 years ago, in which some aspects relating to the doctrine of this group have also been added by inserting them in a negative or allusive context, as if it were a "sect", a term used from some newspaper, just not to miss the opportunity to label a minority at the first good opportunity ...
There have been cited some former members of this organization who have made their animosity against the group they left a real profession, as part of the anti-cult movement that has often orchestrated and continues to orchestrate ad hoc campaigns against groups and movements in order to include them on some "blacklist."
Beyond all the exploitation and falsehoods spread on line, we unfortunately find ourselves faced with a tragic story in which a criminal, out of hatred, has carried out a violent action to hit a person who was connected to the organization just because he was committed to peace and the values of freedom and equality. The Family Federation has been advocating these values for decades, managing to bring together hundreds of authoritative figures of all faiths and political backgrounds around the table of dialogue to develop lasting and shared peace projects. Shinzo Abe had participated in some of these initiatives.
From the press release of the FFWPU, which we report in full, we learn the only reliable information on this matter, because the investigations are still ongoing:
· Tetsuya Yamagami, the killer, is not a member of the FFWPU
· Yamagami's mother is a member of the FFWPU, who occasionally participates in church activities
· Yamagami's statement that her mother's donation to the FFPMU caused family problems is a matter for the police to investigate.
· The night before the assassination, Yamagami tried his self-produced weapon at a building that was previously used as a church for the FFPMU, but there were no victims.
We report the press release issued by the organization.
