SEOUL: Thousands of Unification Church members gathered in Seoul on Thursday August 18 to protest what they call discriminatory and unfair Japanese media coverage of their church since former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe'sAbe's assassination.
The suspect in Abe's shooting on July 8th, Tetsuya Yamagami, bore a grudge against the church, accusing it bankrupted his mother and blaming Abe for promoting it, according to his social media posts and news reports.
Stop biased reporting and religious persecution! In the South Korean capital, demonstrators held placards reading "Respect religious freedom!" chanted in Korean and Japanese, holding placards reading "Respect religious freedom!" Stop hate speech toward the church.
The longstanding links between the strongly anti-communist church, which critics call a cult, and Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, have hurt the popularity of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's government, prompting him to reshuffle his cabinet last week and say that the church has no sway over the party.