In addition, there are a number of Buddhist lay organizations, including Soka Gakkai, which reported a membership of eight million.
In addition, the postwar legal changes ended the Japanese imperial regime's use of discourses of "not religion" (hishūkyō) to protect the religious privileges of state backed Shinto movements.
At all levels, the Japanese Government seeks to protect this right in full and does not tolerate its abuse, either by governmental or private actors.
The U.S. State Department cited the report by the Human Rights Without Frontiers International, which is connected to CESNUR, in the 2011 annual International Religious Freedom Report to Japan summarized that deprogrammers cooperate with family members on "abductions" of members of the Unification Church and other minority religious groups for several years.
The conservative Liberal Democratic Party was founded by Nobusuke Kishi and later led by his grandson, former prime minister Shinzo Abe; the LDP has historically had links to the Unification Church.
[8] In July 2022, Abe was assassinated by Tetsuya Yamagami, who stated that he resented the Unification Church as his mother was "forced" to make a large donation to it, which led to difficulties for his family.