Aum Shinri-kyo and Related Controversies
Aum Shinri-kyo and Related Controversies
WASHINGTON - An annual U.S. report on global terrorism released Monday by the government mentioned Fusako Shigenobu, the arrested founder of the Japanese Red Army guerrilla group.
The State Department report introduced Shigenobu as a Japanese terrorist along with the AUM Shinrikyo cult. It also contained a picture of her.
The report referred to the Shigenobu's November arrest in Osaka Prefecture by Japanese police and following indictment in connection with illegal detention and attempted murder in the 1974 seizure of the French Embassy in The Hague.
The report said the AUM doomsday cult remains under active government surveillance.
AUM, which now calls itself Aleph, used sarin gas in a 1995 attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 12 people and sickened thousands and in an attack a year earlier on a judges' residential compound in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture.
MITO, Japan - The city of Ryugasaki in Ibaraki Prefecture, eastern Japan, announced Tuesday it has accepted the registrations of four children of Shoko Asahara, founder of the AUM Shinrikyo religious cult, and three former AUM followers.
''It is difficult to continue rejecting (the registrations) in a constitutional nation, simply based on anxious emotions of residents,'' said Mayor Takehisa Kushida at a press conference.
The city had been rejecting applications by the seven since July last year, when their move to the city was confirmed, on the grounds that accepting their registrations would compromise the ''welfare of the public.''
The mayor also revealed that the children and the former followers had asked the Ibaraki prefectural government to reconsider the city's decision to reject their registrations last November, but have since withdrawn their request.
Asahara, 46, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, is currently on trial on 13 criminal charges, including the masterminding of the 1995 sarin nerve-gas attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 12 people and injured thousands.
AUM renamed itself Aleph in January last year.
The AUM Shinrikyo cult has been keeping a list of thousands of top university students' e-mail addresses, police said Tuesday. A Metropolitan Police Department investigation found AUM had complied a list of tens of thousands of students attending leading universities in Japan. Law enforcers suspect the cult, which is now calling itself Aleph, intended to use the list to recruit new members. Investigators said AUM formed a group in the metropolitan area inviting students to "learn about networks through home-page design." They said it is likely the cult planned to increase the numbers of its followers through the Internet.
The number of Aum Shinrikyo members living in the cult's facilities nationwide increased by about 150 to around 650 in the year 2000, Justice Minister Masahiko Komura said during a Cabinet meeting Friday.The number of the cult members who periodically attend meetings or other events by the cult, which now calls itself Aleph, also increased to more than 1,000 as of the end of last year, Komura reported. The cult has 29 facilities in 13 prefectures, and has obtained revenues from 13 affiliated corporations and contributions from followers living outside the Aum facilities, he said.Several dozens members who had been imprisoned for their involvement in crimes allegedly committed by the cult returned to the group, according to the minister.Under the law to regulate the cult's activities, established in 1999, the cult is required to periodically report its activities and the number of its members to the Public Security Investigation Agency
Japan's notorious Aum Shinrikyo sect, responsible for the 1995 Tokyo subwaysarin gas attack, is turning itself into a cyber network but is still fundamentally dangerous, the government warned in a report Friday.
The sect "still harbors fundamental dangers," Justice Minister Masahiko Komura was quoted by a ministry official as telling the cabinet. "Moreover, we cannot say there is any change to its secretive and deceptive character," Mr. Komura said.
"The sect attempts to conceal its organizational management by utilizing telecommunications systems such as the Internet and video conferencing to relay its orders, and manage and teach its members," Mr. Komura said.
Kazuya Sameshima, a Public Security Investigation Agency spokesman, said that the agency had evidence showing that the sect, which renamed itself Aleph in January 2000, continued to be centered on its founder, Shoko Asahara.
Mr. Asahara was arrested in May 1995 in connection with the Tokyo subway attack. The attack killed 12 people and wounded thousands. Mr. Asahara has been held in custody ever since.
According to the government report, the sect currently numbers about 650 full-time leaders and teachers, and more than 1,000 followers. TOKYO Japan's notorious Aum Shinrikyo sect, responsible for the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attack, is turning itself into a cyber network but is still fundamentally dangerous, the government warned in a report Friday.
The sect "still harbors fundamental dangers," Justice Minister Masahiko Komura was quoted by a ministry official as telling the cabinet. "Moreover, we cannot say there is any change to its secretive and deceptive character," Mr. Komura said.
"The sect attempts to conceal its organizational management by utilizing telecommunications systems such as the Internet and video conferencing to relay its orders, and manage and teach its members," Mr. Komura said.
Kazuya Sameshima, a Public Security Investigation Agency spokesman, said that the agency had evidence showing that the sect, which renamed itself Aleph in January 2000, continued to be centered on its founder, Shoko Asahara.
Mr. Asahara was arrested in May 1995 in connection with the Tokyo subway attack. The attack killed 12 people and wounded thousands. Mr. Asahara has been held in custody ever since.
According to the government report, the sect currently numbers about 650 full-time leaders and teachers, and more than 1,000 followers. TOKYO Japan's notorious Aum Shinrikyo sect, responsible for the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attack, is turning itself into a cyber network but is still fundamentally dangerous, the government warned in a report Friday.
The sect "still harbors fundamental dangers," Justice Minister Masahiko Komura was quoted by a ministry official as telling the cabinet. "Moreover, we cannot say there is any change to its secretive and deceptive character," Mr. Komura said.
"The sect attempts to conceal its organizational management by utilizing telecommunications systems such as the Internet and video conferencing to relay its orders, and manage and teach its members," Mr. Komura said.
Kazuya Sameshima, a Public Security Investigation Agency spokesman, said that the agency had evidence showing that the sect, which renamed itself Aleph in January 2000, continued to be centered on its founder, Shoko Asahara.
Mr. Asahara was arrested in May 1995 in connection with the Tokyo subway attack. The attack killed 12 people and wounded thousands. Mr. Asahara has been held in custody ever since.
According to the government report, the sect currently numbers about 650 full-time leaders and teachers, and more than 1,000 followers.
TOKYO - Japan's notorious Aum Supreme Truth sect, responsible for the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attack, is turning itself into a cyber network but is still fundamentally dangerous, the government warned in a report Friday.
"The Aum Supreme Truth sect still harbours fundamental dangers," Justice Minister Masahiko Komura was quoted by a ministry official as telling the cabinet meeting.
"Moreover, we cannot say there is any change to its secretive and deceptive character," Komura said.
"The sect attempts to conceal its organizational management by utilizing telecommunications systems such as the Internet and video conferencing to relaying its orders, and manage and teach its members," Komura said.
"While building up telecommunications network, the sect is further strengthening its secretive nature by introducing a code system," Komura said.
Public Security Investigation Agency spokesman Kazuya Sameshima told AFP the agency had evidence showing Aum -- which renamed itself Aleph in January 2000 -- continues to be centered on its founder Shoko Asahara.
Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, was arrested on May 16 1995 in connection with the Tokyo subway attack which killed 12 people and injured thousands of others, and has been held in custody ever since.
"First of all, the sect members are absolute believers, and worshippers of Matsumoto," Sameshima said.
Created by Asahara, a charismatic, half-blind man, the sect shocked the world when Asahara's disciples released Nazi-invented sarin gas in the Tokyo subway on March 20 1995 to avenge a police crackdown on the cult.
The self-styled guru is on trial facing multiple charges including murder for masterminding the subway attack.
"Secondly, we can say that Matsumoto and (Fumihiro) Joyu, who had been executives of the sect at the time of two sarin gas attacks, still are executives," Sameshima said.
After the subway attack, Joyu, an urbane, articulate and photogenic spokesman was the acceptable face of the cult, but he eventually served a three-year prison term for perjury and forging documents.
"The sect bans believers' contacts with society at large, and still restricts their meetings with their families," Sameshima said.
"The secret way in which teaching is conducted has not changed," Sameshima said.
"Believers are not dropping the sect's doctrine which is said to be the fastest way to help mankind, and which also condones murder," Sameshima said, adding that police raids on sect premises had found copies of Matsumoto's writings and videos on its credo.
"We make on-the-spot inspections of the sect's facility almost monthly."
The spokesman said the authorities would continue to keep up constant monitoring of the sect's activities but acknowledged it had so far complied with restrictions placed on it, and the obligation to submit to searches.
"The Public Security Investigation agency will continue to promote inspections strongly, discover the actual status of the sect and respond to the public's expectations," the justice minister said.
According to the report, the sect currently numbers about 650 full-time leaders and teachers, and more than 1,000 followers.
It has 29 major facilities such as training centres, and regional branches. Aum also has about 200 accommodation facilities for full-time adherents, the ministry said in the report.
Doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, which was behind the 1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, is growing and remains a threat, according to the Japanese justice ministry. In the latest annual review of the cult, the ministry said it was reasserting its influence via the internet.
The ministry said Aum Shinrikyo now had about 650 leaders and teachers and a further 1,000 followers in Japan and elsewhere, and uses the internet and video conferencing to stay in touch.
Cult leader Shoko Asahara is in jail
The group hit the headlines in 1995 after releasing deadly Sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway, killing 12 people and injuring thousands of others.
The cult, which changed its name last year to Aleph - the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet - insists it is now a benign religious group.
Dangerous
Noting that it had changed its name and apologised for the gas attack, the report said however that the organisation's "deceptive nature" remained unchanged.
"The sect attempts to conceal its organisational management by using systems such as the internet and video conferencing to relay its orders and manage and teach its members", the French news agency AFP quoted the Justice Minister, Masahiko Komura, as saying.
The report concluded that the group's "dangerous nature has not changed", even though no poisonous substances or ingredients have been found in their facilities.
It noted that Aleph was expanding its computer-related business and making profits from other companies involved in publicising the teachings of its jailed leader, Shoko Asahara.
Since the jailing of Asahara - a half-blind, charismatic man whose real name is Chizo Matsumoto - daily control of the cult has fallen to Fumihiro Joyu, the former head of Aum's operations in Moscow.
TOKYO --Membership of the doomsday cult behind the 1995 deadly gas attack on the Tokyo subways is growing steadily, as it reasserts its influence through the Internet, the Japanese government said Friday. Membership of the Aum Shinri Kyo cult has grown by about 150, or 10%, with around 1,650 followers by the end of last year, the Justice Ministry said in a report submitted to the Cabinet. About 650 of them are carrying out cult activities at group homes and facilities, the ministry said.
The group was responsible for the sarin gas attack on March 20, 1995, which killed 12 people and affected thousands. The incident shook the people's sense of security in Japan, which had enjoyed a relatively low crime rate.
The report said that on the surface the group had changed its name, acknowledged its responsibility for the subway gassing, and apologized. But fundamentally, it remains the same, the report said.
"The group's dangerous nature has not changed even though no poisonous substances or ingredients have been found at their facilities," the report said. "Its deceptive nature is unchanged."
Investigators at the Public Safety Agency have found 29 Aum facilities and 200 apartment houses in 10 on-site inspections, the report said.
It said the cult, which now calls itself Aleph, is expanding its computer-related business and raking in profits from its 13 companies.
Under influential leader Fumihiro Joyu's "cyber cult" plan, the group continues spreading its "dangerous" teachings on the Net, the report said.
Joyu, jailed guru Shoko Asahara's most-trusted aide, was released from prison in December 1999 and is considered the cult's de facto leader.
The cult also earns funds by charging excessive fees through the sale of books and compact discs containing Asahara's teachings and seminars.
The group is moving to expand its operations overseas as well, said the report, which did not specify where.
By law the cult is under Public Safety Agency surveillance. The Justice Ministry is responsible for publishing the cult's activities in an annual report. The latest update covers the period between May 16 and December 31, 2000.
Judges have handed down death sentences to several former leaders involved in the gas attack and other killings. Guru Shoko Asahara is still on trial for masterminding the 1995 gassing and 16 other charges.
TOKYO - The Public Security Investigation Agency provided 72 local governments across Japan with information about the AUM Shinrikyo cult, including data on inspections of AUM facilities, between February and the end of last year, according to a report adopted at a cabinet meeting Friday.
In the report on the enforcement of an anti-AUM law, the agency said 40 local governments received information about the doomsday sect from June through the end of 2000.
The law, which took effect in December 1999, is aimed at monitoring and cracking down on groups that have conducted indiscriminate mass murders during the past 10 years, namely AUM.
In accordance with the law, government officials said, the cult has been under surveillance by the agency since February last year.
The legislation stipulates that reports be submitted once a year to the Diet, and Friday's account is the second. The first was compiled last May.
Justice Minister Masahiko Komura said at the meeting that the sect remains a potential threat, and that the report says its reclusive, deceptive attitudes are unchanged.
According to the report, the agency conducted inspections of 19 AUM facilities in 11 prefectures on 10 separate occasions from May 16 through the end of 2000.
No poisonous substances or dangerous materials were found. There were also no attempts to interfere with the probes, the report said.
Of the 40 local governments, Tokyo, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Chiba, Gifu and Shiga prefectures received information on AUM from the agency on a total of 16 occasions. Fifteen municipal and other governments, including Yokohama, Nagoya and Chiba's Kashiwa, were given information on a total of 24 occasions.
As of the end of last year, AUM, which has changed its name to ''Aleph,'' reportedly had about 650 live-in followers and more than 1,000 believers who do not live with the cult.
AUM founder Shoko Asahara and many AUM cultists have been accused, some already convicted, in a series of crimes, notably the 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 12 people and sickened more than 5,000.
The Tokyo District Court decided Wednesday to hand down a ruling on July 25 in a damages lawsuit filed against Shoko Asahara, founder of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, over a 1994 sarin gas attack in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture. The decision was made after the plaintiffs, eight family members representing four victims of the attack and demanding 545 million yen in damages, gave their final statements before the court, concluding hearings in the civil case.
The case was filed in August 1995, about one year after the attack, but proceedings were suspended for almost four years because the court decided in December 1996 to await the verdict of criminal lawsuits filed against Asahara, 46.
In February of this year, the court decided not to put Asahara on the stand in the civil case because they did not believe the cult leader would testify voluntarily in court. Masako Yasumoto, 64, whose daughter was killed in the attack, told the court that she is frustrated because she will not hear directly from Asahara in court.
"I will never forgive Asahara for killing my beloved daughter," she said.
Seven people were killed and more than 200 people were injured by the sarin gas attack in the city of Matsumoto in June 1994.
Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, has been indicted on 13 criminal charges, including those related to the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system.
TOKYO - The Tokyo High Court ordered the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper Wednesday to publish a correction over a report on the AUM Shinrikyo religious cult run May 26 last year.
But the ruling rejected the cult's compensation claim.
AUM claimed in a libel suit filed against Mainichi Newspaper Co., the paper's publisher, May 29 last year that the report unfairly gave the impression it was continuing to manufacture deadly sarin gas, and sought 10 million yen in compensation.
The Tokyo District Court rejected the suit, leading AUM to file an appeal with the high court Dec. 18.
Presiding Judge Takaharu Kondo said two headlines run nearby to each other reading ''Sarin research continues'' and ''AUM'' might have given the false impression at first glance that the cult was still researching the production of sarin gas.
However, the judge said, ''If a reader reads the entire story, they will not have such an impression,'' and that the story did not defame the cult.
According to the ruling, the Mainichi reported that a chemical formula was written in a female cult member's notebook that was confiscated by police.
''The ruling was unexpected,'' the Mainichi said. ''We will decide how to deal with the issue after examining the court ruling.''
AUM, which now calls itself Aleph, used sarin gas in a 1995 attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 12 and made thousands ills and in an attack a year earlier on a judges' residential compound in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture.
TOKYO - Two AUM Shinrikyo cultists were arrested Thursday on separate suspicion of fraud and falsification of documents, Tokyo police said.
Hisayoshi Aramaki is suspected of swindling the government out of about 720,000 yen in unemployment benefits, while Koji Kihara allegedly filed forged documents in connection with an AUM-run company, police said.
The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) searched seven locations in Tokyo including an AUM facility in Suginami Ward in connection with the allegations.
Aramaki, 37, allegedly filed an application with a public employment security office and obtained a 90-day unemployment allowance, despite the fact he earned income from software development from March to June last year.
Kihara, 46, is suspected of filing forged documents with local authorities in February 1999 when he reshuffled executives in the company.
Kihara registered his personal computer shop NetBank in Tokyo's Akihabara electronic goods district with local authorities in December 1999, but closed it a month later.
Aramaki, however, received unemployment allowance from the government, saying he was a NetBank employee who had been laid off.
The MPD suspects the pair may have thought about obtaining unemployment benefits in a systematic manner because more than 10 other people applied for a similar allowance, claiming they were fired by the firm.
Aramaki was part of the software development division of the doomsday cult, which now calls itself Aleph.
During the time he received the allowance, he is believed to have developed cellular phone equipment in products used by a major mobile operator for more than 10 million yen.
AUM orchestrated the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 12 people and sickened more than 5,000. Founder Shoko Asahara and other former senior members of the sect have either been on trial or have been given sentences, including death, for their part in the attack.
TOKYO - A survivor of the March 1995 sarin gas attack by the AUM Shinrikyo religious cult on the Tokyo subway system said Thursday during a trial in Tokyo that the cult's founder should face the death penalty for his crime.
The 67-year-old man, testifying as a witness in the trial of AUM founder Shoko Asahara at the Tokyo District Court, said all those responsible for the sarin gas attack should share their fate and ''they deserve capital punishment.''
It was the first time that a victim of the incident has testified publicly about his feelings at Asahara's trial. Twelve people were killed and more than 5,000 injured in the subway attack.
''I feel indignation that people who were on their way to work early to avoid the morning rush hour were indiscriminately killed or injured,'' the man testified.
At about 8 a.m. on March 20, 1995, the man was on a train on the Hibiya Line when he noticed a clear liquid was leaking from the edge of a folded newspaper on the floor, he said.
He leaned down to look more closely and unwittingly inhaled the sarin gas, which had been spread around the train by Toru Toyoda, a 33-year-old former senior member of the cult.
When asked by prosecutors how he feels now when he looks back on the incident, the man said, ''I was terrified to see people who were in convulsions and groaning on the platform.''
The man, who was ill for two months after the attack, said he still suffers from aftereffects of the sarin gas such as weakened eyesight and a sluggish sensation in his lower body.
Toyoda was sentenced last July to death by the same district court, along with another former AUM follower Kenichi Hirose.
Shigeo Sugimoto, another former cult member, was sentenced to life in prison for his role as the driver of the getaway vehicle in the attack.
All three appealed their convictions to the Tokyo High Court.
Two other assailants in the 1995 attack, Masato Yokoyama and Yasuo Hayashi, both former senior cult members, also received death sentences from the local court, while Ikuo Hayashi, a former doctor at an AUM-affiliated hospital, was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment on the grounds that he showed remorse for his actions, and willingly turned himself in to the police.
Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, was indicted on 13 charges, including those related to the 1995 sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway system, a 1994 sarin gas attack on judges' official residences in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture and the 1989 triple murder case of Tsutsumi Sakamoto, a lawyer who opposed AUM, his wife Satoko, and their 1-year-old son Tatsuhiko.
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