Japanese Court Awards Unificationist Damages Against Relatives, Deprogrammer Who Held Him Captive

In Japan, 50-year old Toru Goto, a member of the Unification Church, has won a lawsuit against a religious deprogrammer and against his own brother, sister and sister-in-law who held him captive from September 1995 to February 2008 in an effort to get him to give up his religious beliefs. According to a press release from the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, the Tokyo District Court in a Jan. 28 decision awarded Goto damages equivalent to $47,000(US). Unificationists hope this is a step toward ending deprogramming in Japan.