Activity | The International Association for Religious Freedom

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The IARF-US Chapter board wishes to bring your attention to the attached statement regarding its deep concern over a growing threat to religious freedom in Japan, particularly in relation to the Unification Church (UC) and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Defending Religious Freedom in Japan.pdf

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4 Comments

Lukasz (Luke) Liniewicz
1 day, 6 hours ago

Thank you for sharing this, Stephen. Has Kunihiko brought this to the attention of the Chapter? Have you communicated with the Japan Chapter about this?
- Stephen (道説) Schwichow
  1 day, 6 hours ago
  
  Unless I’m mistake, Kuni has brought this to the attention of the Japanese IARF Chapter.
  
  Please feel free to bring this question up on the IARF-US Facebook page. Kuni has joined, as has Rev. Maruta.
  
  We even brought this up in our conversation with the U.S. Commission on Int’l Religious Freedom and they said they were aware of this situation.
  
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/5819013228206877
  - Lukasz (Luke) Liniewicz
    1 day, 6 hours ago
    
    Thanks, Stephen. By the way, haven’t you considered moving the group to iarf.net? 🙂 Some people may not be on Facebook, and it would help to liven up our platform 🙂
    
    As for the UCh, this is an interesting piece about the situation: https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/d00845/. There seem to be many complex issues involved and it’s difficult to form an opinion, to be honest… Dissolution doesn’t mean prohibition of activities, just loss of the tax-exempt status granted to religious organisations. Given the accusations leveled at the church (of exploiting their members financially), that may actually not be such a bad measure to take… But I don’t know enough about it to really have an opinion, of course. If Kunihiko believes that it is a cause for concern, then it probably is. And JWs… oh well, it’s a wasp’s nest, isn’t it? Sigh.
    - Lukasz (Luke) Liniewicz
      1 day, 6 hours ago
      
      PS. I think John set up a group for the Chapter, though it hasn’t taken off yet: https://iarf.net/groups/iarf-us/. It works basically like a Facebook group, with sharing, including video, tagging, discussions, etc., and I could use some feedback on how to improve them! 🙂

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