The Words of the Burton Family
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The Words of the Burton Family |
Luke
Higuchi, president of Survivor's Against Forced Exit (SAFE)
Mr. Luke Higuchi, president of Survivor's Against Forced Exit (SAFE), a group dedicated to stopping religious kidnapping and forced conversion in Japan, is scheduled to spend several weeks in Japan to assist relief efforts and to gather facts about the status of Japanese victims of religious persecution.
A U.S. citizen and a resident of Leonia, New Jersey, Mr. Higuchi will serve as a liaison and translator for nonprofit relief organizations that will send food and medicine to the hardest hit areas on Japan's eastern coast. Mr. Higuchi is also a Unificationist active in the Northern New Jersey branch of the Unification Church.
"I am going back to my native Japan to rebuild the country -- but not only with bricks and mortar but with a better human-rights foundation," Mr. Higuchi says, adding: "Although I still have a passion to help victims of religious persecution, the fact is that now is the time to help the whole nation of Japan, regardless of partisan or religious differences. We will help anyone, including those who have gone out of their way to deny the religious freedom of members of new religious movements."
Mr. Higuchi has spent the last year speaking at rallies and on public-affairs TV programs about the problem of kidnapping and false imprisonment suffered by more than 4,300 Japanese citizens who are members of the Unification Church. (Mr. Higuchi's talk at a press conference in Bowie, MD on March 15, 2011 was canceled in deference to the crisis in Japan.)
Sometimes referred to as "deprogramming," the practice of holding people against their will for days, weeks, or months and until they agree to recant their beliefs was the fate of hundreds of American citizens 35 years ago, but such practices ended after successful prosecutions of the so-called deprogrammers. However, in Japan, the phenomenon continues and has drawn investigations by two working groups within the UN Human Rights Council. Professional faith-breakers in Japan reportedly are paid $50,000 to $100,000 to forcibly de-convert members of minority religions, who sometimes endure physical and psychological abuse for weeks at a time.