Japan's policy chief visits Unification Church

TOKYO Kyodo Liberal Democratic Party policy chief Koichi Hagiuda visited the controversial Unification Church in June, accompanying ruling party candidate Akiko Ikuina ahead of the upper house election, Ikuina's office said Wednesday.

The then industry minister, Hagiuda, and Ikuina, who was elected in the House of Councillors election on July 10 in the Tokyo constituency, visited the facility in Hachioji in western Tokyo to seek the support of the religious group.

After a weekly magazine report Tuesday about their visit to the place in Hachioji, the house of Representatives constituency in which Hagiuda was elected, she said she visited the related facility with Hagiuda.

After hearing a speech by the candidate, Ikuina asked that she speak there, her office said.

The church was under the spotlight in Japan after the fatal shooting of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe days before the election. The gunman was quoted by investigators as saying his family was ruined after his mother made huge donations to the church and he believed Abe was linked to the group.

Hagiuda, a close aide of Abe and a member of the LDP's largest faction previously headed by the former prime minister, admitted earlier to having spoken at an event related to the church, now known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. The church is famous for its mass weddings. A number of its followers have been convicted in the country over spiritual sales, in which people are talked into buying jars and other items for exorbitant prices by using threats, including the citation of ancestral karma, leading to some critics calling the group an antisocial cult.

Hagiuda was named LDP policy chief last week, as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reshuffled his cabinet and party executive lineups to reverse flagging public support amid scrutiny over the party's relationship with the religious group.

Kishida asked all ministers to review and review any links to the group in question in order to avoid public doubts and appointed only those who have agreed to do so. Seven of the seven members of the new cabinet have been found to have had links with the church, including by participating in events or paying fees. Economic revitalization minister Daishiro Yamagiwa, who retained the portfolio, and Katsunobu Kato, who became health minister again, are among them.

A recent Kyodo News survey showed that 106 of Japan's 712 lawmakers have had some connection with the group, with nearly 80 percent of them belonging to the LDP.