The Words of the Burton Family

Abduction Victim Escapes Confinement in Japan

Douglas Burton
January 12, 2011


Apartment building in the Tokyo area where Ms. MA was imprisoned. She jumped from the third-floor veranda and caught hold of the utility pole at right.

One brave Unificationist woman in Tokyo started the New Year right by escaping from abduction and forced confinement on Jan. 3, 2011, according to unofficial sources in the Unification Church in Japan. The plucky 32-year-old leaped from a third-floor balcony to a nearby electric-cable pole and climbed down without being noticed by her captors.

The victim is Ms. MA, (name withheld at her request to protect her from harassment) who was abducted by her father, guided by an infamous anti-cult professional on New Year's Day. The so-called deprogrammer in charge of her coercive confinement was Takashi Miyamura, known worldwide ever since one of his victims, Mr. Toru Goto, was released from a 12-year confinement in February 2008.

Ms. MA was forcibly confined by her father and other relatives on New Year's Day, most likely in the hope that they were rescuing their daughter, when, in fact, they were risking irreparable harm to the entire family by paying professional deprogrammers to break her deeply-held convictions.

She visited her parents' home on Jan 1, 2011. New Year's in Japan is a popular holiday for family reunions. According to Unification Church members in Tokyo, when Ms. MA arrived at her home, she met not only her parents and relatives, but some of her teachers from her elementary school and junior high school as well.

Her father then reportedly announced: "Let's go to another place, so we can discuss things without any interruption." Ms. MA cooperated, but reported later that as soon as she got into a car, her mobile phone was confiscated. She told church officials that she arrived at a third-floor apartment around 2:00 a.m. on Jan 2, 2011.

Around 2:00 p.m. on the same day (Jan 2), Mr. Miyamura arrived at the apartment with three assistants, all former Unification Church members who had turned against the church after undergoing forced conversion by professional faith-breakers. Ms. MA told authorities that one of them was a former friend and trusted leader in the church. All of them began denouncing the Unification Church and threatening Ms. MA with indefinite confinement. As has been documented by journalist Kazuhiro Yonemoto, the coercive tactics of such sessions has resulted in hundreds of cases of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Ms. MA may have felt that her life would be disfigured forever.

Around 2:00 a.m. on Jan 3, 2011, Ms. MA says she sneaked out to the third-floor veranda and managed to jump to an electric pole approximately one meter away, thus risking her life to escape. She descended to the ground and hailed a taxi, returning to the church at 4:00 a.m., according to the sources.

Senior members of the Unification Church reportedly are making efforts to restore the relationships between Ms. MA and her parents.

In December 2010 tens of thousands of Unificationists demonstrated in 47 prefectures to protest the deliberate refusal of Japanese authorities to prosecute abduction and false imprisonment of Unificationists whose relatives oppose their church membership.

Find a published source at the following blog:

humanrightslink.blogspot.com and at
miyamurakenkyu.seesaa.net/article/179422819.html 

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