Photo/Illutration Tatsuo Hashida during a news conference in Tokyo on Oct. 18 (Kyota Tanaka)

A farmer in Kochi Prefecture who blames the Unification Church for the breakup of his family said a church leader made an unwelcomed visit to tell him to stop talking to the media.

Tatsuo Hashida, 64, said the senior official, Hideyuki Teshigawara, would not leave the home even after a phone call to the police was made.

“I don’t want you to be on the mass media anymore,” Hashida quoted Teshigawara as telling him.

Hashida said he was shaken by the visit, but it made him angrier and even more determined to speak publicly about the church’s dubious activities.

He held a news conference in Tokyo on Oct. 18 to describe Teshigawara’s antics and repeat how his wife’s hefty donations to the church ruined the family.

Katsuomi Abe, a member of the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales who represents Hashida, sent a protest letter to the organization on Oct. 18.

The letter said Teshigawara’s visit to Hashida was made with the “intention to silence the voice of a person who is going to speak about serious damage, and it is unforgivable.”

Hashida, who attended an Oct. 12 hearing about the church jointly held by opposition parties, has told news media that he and his wife divorced about nine years ago mainly because of her large donations to the religious group.

After the divorce, their oldest son lived with his mother, but he killed himself about two years ago, Hashida said.

A lawyer representing Hashida said the religious group caused the family about 100 million yen ($670,500) in financial damages. 

The lawyer said the Hashida family even sold their land after the church warned, “An evil spirit is in a rice paddy.”

Hashida said he received a call from a local resident related to the church on Oct. 15, saying that Teshigawara wanted to meet him.

But Hashida said he explicitly said “no” to the visit.

Nonetheless, Teshigawara turned up at Hashida’s home on the evening of Oct. 16 and said, “I want to talk, one on one.”

He told Hashida to stop talking about the church to the media, and he did not leave until after Hashida called the police and officers arrived at his home.

“I couldn’t sleep for 24 hours because someone else might be coming to my house,” Hashida said after the visit.

Hashida said the church “is trying to contain me and has no intention of returning the money.”

“I cannot express the level of my anger any further,” he said.

The church also tried to silence a former member in her 20s who used the pseudonym Sayuri Ogawa at an Oct. 7 news conference held at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo.

Ogawa said that she and her parents, who are still followers of the church, were coerced into donating huge sums to the organization.

In the middle of the news conference, the church and her parents sent faxes to the club, urging it to end the session and attempting to discredit Ogawa’s character.

“The church is trying to kill the voices of people who have the courage to speak out,” Abe said.

Church officials have declined to comment on the matter.

Related News