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Japan: Anti-Cult Journalist Eight Suzuki Found Guilty of Defamation

Importing a typical attitude of European anti-cultists, Suzuki claims he “almost won” a case he lost. In this article, the attorney who defeated him explains why.


February 3, 2025


Eight Suzuki. Credits.
Eight Suzuki. Credits.

In October 2023, Bitter Winter reported that Japanese anti-cult journalist Eight Suzuki had been sued before the Tokyo District Court for false statements.One of the lawsuits was filed by Toru Goto, a believer of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (formerly the Unification Church), claiming that articles and comments by Suzuki had damaged his reputation. The Tokyo District Court ruled on 31 January, 2025 that part of Suzuki’s comments constituted defamation. The court ordered Suzuki to pay 110,000 yen (US $710) in compensation. The amount of damage is symbolic, but corresponds to the normal sums awarded in Japan in cases of defamation through social media. The real punishment is the verdict itself.Toru Goto had been abducted and confined by his relatives and deprogrammers for twelve years and a half in a wicked attempt to force him to lose the faith. Previous court rulings held the deprogramming to be illegal, which was confirmed at the Supreme Court in 2015.


However, Suzuki, though knowing the whole court case, commented many times that Goto was just a “hikikomori,” a term that in Japanese indicates a “shut-in,” a recluse suffering of agoraphobia who voluntarily withdraws from society and remains for years in his room. When in 2023 Masumi Fukuda, a journalist who is critic of the anti-cult movement in Japan, questioned Suzuki why he continued to insult Goto, the journalist bluntly answered “I couldn’t care less.” Such offensive attitude generated furious responses in social media, and made Goto file a defamation suit against Suzuki in October 2023. 


In this suit, Suzuki could not submit any new evidence to prove that Goto was a “hikikomori” who voluntarily withdrew from society. All the arguments and documents produced by Suzuki were the ones already submitted in the previous case that ended in 2015 with Goto’s victory. The Tokyo District Court held that Suzuki’s remarks unlawfully damaged Goto’s social reputation. 


This victory by Goto is the first successful judgment for the Family Federation rendered after the assassination of ex-Prime Minister Abe in 2022. After the assassination, the anti-cult movement became almost omnipotent in Japan and the Family Federation was subject to nationwide slander and strong social discrimination, which brought the government to file a suit to dissolve the religious organization. This dissolution suit is now pending at the Tokyo District Court. Under the surge of such hostile atmosphere in Japan, all the judgments rendered in the last couple of years to the Family Federation and its associated entities (around ten cases) were unfavorable to them. Under such circumstances, it has been argued that in Japanese courts there is an “unwritten rule” that “If you are a cult, you lose.” I wish Goto’s victory over Suzuki could become a threshold to make the wrong tide change.


Toru Goto after his long non-voluntary confinement.
Toru Goto after his long non-voluntary confinement.

That this judgment attacks the credibility of Suzuki is also significant. After the Abe assassination, Suzuki became very popular and led the national campaign against the Family Federation calling it a “cult” that caused the crime against Abe to be committed. Suzuki’s argument is that (i) the assassin Tetsuya Yamagami, whose mother is a believer of the Family Federation who donated significant money based on her devout faith, is a “victim” of the Family Federation and (ii) the ruling party in Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), has historically maintained under Abe an intimate connection with the Family Federation. This argument by Suzuki was welcomed by both the left-wing parties who attacks the LDP and anti-cult organizations such as the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales. Suzuki has acted as a national leader of the partisan attack against the Family Federation. The leader’s defeat in court would hopefully weaken this partisan campaign in Japan.


Following the ruling, Suzuki has commented that the ruling was “almost victorious” for him given the nominal damages. This is just propaganda, and it seems Suzuki has learned from European anti-cultists the dubious art of systematically claiming they won cases they in fact lost. By making such propaganda, Suzuki continues to prove his main job is as an anti-cult activist though after the Abe assassination he became famous as a journalist. He expressed his intention to appeal this case by saying, “In-depth criticism shouldn’t constitute defamation.” However, humiliating a 12-year-confined victim by calling him “hikikomori” or voluntary recluse without showing any evidence is not “in-depth” criticism but slander and offense. The appeal case is expected to conclude in the summer of 2025. 


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