TOKYO —  Freedom of religion is the “orphaned” human right, as Western democracies instead furiously debate gender rights, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

That was a core message at last month’s International Freedom of Religion Summit Asia, held in Tokyo, Japan.

“We are now at a time when democratic backsliding and aggression is becoming more widespread and people face persecution due to their religious beliefs,” Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te told the summit in a video address. “We must reaffirm our commitment to freedom and dignity.”

Despite deep political polarization in the U.S., there is convergence on the issue.

“It is deeply telling that you have two different political parties and thought processes but each believes deeply in the criticality of international religious freedoms,” said former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “It is not partisan in the U.S., it is something that is intrinsic to human dignity.”

“We are the only creatures that are hard-wired to ask the deepest questions: ‘Who am I? ‘ ‘Why am I here? What is the purpose of my life?’ added IRF Summit Co-Chair Katrina Lantos Swett. “There is a voluminous amount of research showing that countries that protect freedom of religion, conscience and belief get the other stuff right — democracy, pluralism, they are less likely to be incubators of social tension, and women have a higher socio-economic status.”

Freedom of worship “is a human right that authoritarian regimes despise, they hate it, as it is generally people of faith that will stand up,” added Ms. Swett’s fellow co-chair, former Sen. Sam Brownback, who also served as the U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.

“It is a cornerstone human right, and can build freedom of assembly and speech if you get this right —  and you can plug into an army,” he said.

As religions are practiced across political borders, if they unite under the banner of freedom of belief, they will not only obviate the feared “clash of civilizations,” they will also wield massive clout.

“Eighty percent of the world proclaims a faith of some type,” Mr. Brownback said. “You have got an army behind you that says, ‘I am behind you on that.’”

Attendees at the summit hailed from multiple religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Shintoism. Numerous human rights organizations were also represented.

The Indo-Pacific is seeing widespread state assaults on religious minorities: Rohingya Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, Underground North Korean Christians and Uyghur Muslims, to name a few.

Ms. Swett told the crowd that the host nation for the summit, Japan, can “play a critical role in advancing the protection” of religious freedom.

Japan, while an economic powerhouse, has, since the end of World War II, largely been pacifist. But as regional threats have risen over the last decade, it has quietly beefed up its armed forces and is forging closer ties with nearby democracies, including Australia, the Philippines, and South Korea.

“Japan is an incredibly important partner — the largest [East] Asian democracy, so much creativity, it has much economic power and could have the same moral power,” said Nathan Sales, former ambassador-at-large and counterterrorism coordinator at the State Department and now a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. 

“Japan policymakers will come to understand that this is ultimately good for Japan: The movement needs Japan’s vision and leadership, but Japan also benefits,” Mr. Sales said.

Even so, just one Japanese parliamentarian attended the summit, held in a central Tokyo hotel. Japanese media presence was minimal.

Some analysts have been unconvinced that the country is willing to be vocal on human rights.

And while summit goers praised Japan for its entrenched democratic credentials, the elephant in the room was Tokyo’s ongoing political and media assault on the Unification Church.

Religious scapegoat?

What began with a tiny church founded in South Korea in the 1950s has evolved over decades into a global spiritual movement and affiliated commercial empire comprising hundreds of ventures, including The Washington Times.

It has a strong anti-communist stance, and Japanese members have a history of assisting the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, a conservative machine, with electioneering.

Ties between the LDP and the church were torn apart in 2022. That year, Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving post-war prime minister and a key LDP figure, was murdered.

His killer was angered by Mr. Abe’s links to the church, which, he said, caused his mother’s bankruptcy due to huge monetary donations from her. What is under-reported is that his mother, still a church member, and other family members signed a statement absolving the church of any responsibility and received half her donations back.

Regardless, the revelation of connections between the church’s anti-communist affiliates and the LDP, dating back to 1978, generated shockwaves. Though ties between Japanese politics and religions are not unusual — the LDP’s coalition partner in the Diet is Komeito, a Buddhist party —  Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in damage-control mode, is requiring party members to sever ties with the church.

The left wing and the media have piled on, and the church’s allies evaporated. Just one man in Japan’s Diet is speaking up.

“Strong criticism has passed against [the church] ever since the assassination,” said Diet Upper House Member Satoshi Hamada. “However, according to the research I conducted, the [church] was not really the main cause of the incident.”

Calling the onslaught “unfair,” he added, “There are 700 parliamentarians in Japan, but only one speaks about this issue — me.”

Pending appeal processes, the church, which has broken no law, faces national dissolution. That means revocation of its legal status and tax exemptions and the confiscation of all property and assets, financial or otherwise.

It looks set to be the third such organization to suffer similar sanctions. The first two were Aum (Shinrikyo) Supreme Truth, which killed dozens by releasing nerve gas in a subway in 1995, and Myokaku-ji Temple, which defrauded people by charging for exorcisms.

In a meeting held after the summit, Japanese church members, who number around 100,000 regular servicegoers and 600,000 believers, spoke of the crosses they bear.

Churches have been defaced with hate speech, and members’ cars and homes have been vandalized. Some believers have been physically threatened.

Children of believers have been bullied at school to the point where some have turned against religion. Workers have been ostracized by colleagues.

A church-linked NGO, the Women’s Federation for World Peace that builds schools across developing Africa has had an honor it received from the Japanese Foreign Ministry revoked, has had its brand removed from schools it helped build, and has otherwise been demonized.

Abuses date back years. One church was attacked by a mob, and a complaint filed with the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 2022 reported that, since the 1980s, 4,300 members of the church have been kidnapped and held against their will to break their faith.

Police have declined to intervene in these intra-family cases.

Out of hundreds of lawsuits, only two were successful. In one filed in 2015, the Supreme Court of Japan ruled in favor of Toru Goto, who sued deprogrammers who confined him for 12 years and five months. After that decision, these faith-breaking deprogrammings stopped.

The practice was found to be Illegal in the U.S. in 1997, with many deprogrammers jailed for kidnapping.

Summit speakers agreed the church has been scapegoated by politicians and demonized by the media.

“It is lamentable that in the National Diet, the source of democratic power, even house members have turned a blind eye to the social eradication of certain new religions for fear of being associated with a particular cult,” said Chair of the Board of the International Shinto Studies Association the Rev. Yoshinobu Mikake. “Mass media played the role of justice.”

Mr. Pompeo requested Tokyo step back from the dissolution, which would leave churches shuttered and pastors unable to preach.

“It would be a mistake and detrimental to the country to dissolve any church or any practicing faith …though if someone breaks the law, I get it,” he said. “This, in my judgment. would be improper … I pray the leadership will review this.”

• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.