Japan: Lawyers, Deprogramming, and the Unification Church Dissolution Case. 6. The Secret Letters

Confidential documents show that lawyers contacted parents who had never complained about their children’s involvement in the church and urged them to hire deprogrammers.

By Patricia Duval

June 17, 2025

Article 6 of 7. Read article 1, article 2, article 3, article 4, and article 5.

Attorney Hiroshi Watanabe, the author of the “secret letters.” Screenshot.

NNLSS lawyers referred parents to pastors precisely because they used these “rescue” methods. This is evident in the “secret letters” one of the Network’s leading attorneys sent to parents. 

Journalist Kazuhiro Yonemoto has published these letters online in a series entitled “Secret Letters of Attorney Hiroshi Watanabe,” “Letters that Lead You to the Kidnapping and Confinement Strategy.” 

Attorney Hiroshi Watanabe, who was then serving as secretary-general of LNVSS in Tokyo (so, also a member of NNLSS), sent letters to the parents of Unification Church members after finding their addresses. 

Lawyer Watanabe’s first letter was addressed to the parents of a female member on November 14, 2008. 

This letter included the following wording: “As long as X (daughter of the parents) remains affiliated with the Unification Church, it will be impossible for her to leave on her own. It is necessary that you, X’s parents, come to understand the reality of the Unification Church as a cult and consult with a pastor of the United Church of Christ in Japan who is knowledgeable about this issue, or with me, to consider rescuing X.” 

Lawyer Watanabe then made precise recommendations to keep secret the letter and all the procedures of “rescue,” which should be done using a ploy and lies. Any direct communication with the member had to be avoided to catch her by surprise and impose a forceful “rescue” on her: “Please be absolutely sure not to inform X that I have sent this letter, or that you, the parents, have noticed X’s involvement with the Unification Church.

Also, do not confront X directly about this issue. Such actions will only cause her to become further immersed in the activities of the Unification Church, making rescue extremely difficult. Please contact me immediately without alerting X. I repeat: do not mention anything about this letter or the Unification Church to X. I sincerely hope that you, the parents, will quickly recognize the true nature of the Unification Church and act swiftly to rescue X.” 

The above letter was sent to a believer’s parents, who, fortunately, despite the lawyer’s instructions to the contrary, told her about it. In October 2009, she filed a disciplinary complaint against attorney Hiroshi Watanabe with the Tokyo Bar Association. However, the complaint was dismissed. 

Journalist Kazuhiro Yonemoto published this letter on his blog and criticized attorney Watanabe for its content. He also reported that lawyer Watanabe was represented for the disciplinary hearing at the Bar by attorney Hiroshi Yamaguchi, the leading figure of NNLSS, and also by around forty lawyers, named by Yamaguchi to defend the author of the letter of incitement to coerced de-conversion. 

Later, on February 22, 2011, it was revealed that lawyer Hiroshi Watanabe had sent a similar letter to the parents of a male believer. 

This was also reported by journalist Yonemoto on his blog under the heading “Attorney Watanabe is Still Continuing—Letter to incite to Confinement Operation.” The letter contained the same warning and recommendation: “As long as Ken [pseudonym] remains affiliated with the Unification Church, it will be almost impossible for him to leave on his own. It is necessary that you, Ken’s parents, come to understand the reality of the Unification Church as a cult and consult with a pastor of the United Church of Christ in Japan who is knowledgeable about this issue, or with me, to consider rescuing Ken.”

Journalist Kazuhiro Yonemoto. From X.

And the same instructions of secrecy: “Please be absolutely certain not to inform Ken that this letter has been sent from me, or that you, the parents, have noticed Ken’s involvement with the Unification Church. Also, do not confront Ken directly about this issue. Such actions will only cause him to become further immersed in the activities of the Unification Church, making rescue extremely difficult. Please contact me immediately without alerting Ken. I repeat: do not mention anything about this letter or about the Unification Church to Ken. I sincerely hope that you, the parents, will quickly recognize the true nature of the Unification Church and act swiftly to rescue Ken.”

These letters evidence that NNLSS lawyers not only referred parents to pastors for the violent deprogramming of their kin believers, but they also recommended the use of lies and stratagems to lead the believers into a trap. 

Noteworthy is that, according to the parents’ testimony published by journalist Yonemoto, the letter was delivered to Ken’s parents by Eight Suzuki, a prominent figure of the anti-cult movement. The incident came to light because Suzuki handed his business card to the parents when delivering the letter. His card mentioned “Eight Suzuki, Anti-Cult Activist.”

Eight Suzuki. From X.

Lawyer Watanabe’s letter states that he learned of Ken’s membership in the Unification Church from “a certain person.” That “someone” brought the letter to Ken’s parents’ home in Saitama City. 

So, the anti-cult movement or the deprogrammers themselves communicated the names of believers’ parents, who had never complained of anything, to NNLSS lawyers. The latter compiled lists of believers’ names through the “loyalty test” (see above)—a step of the “rescue” where the believers who claimed to have lost their faith had to write down the names of all their contacts at the Unification Church. 

This way, the lawyers of NNLSS could work upstream to refer clients to the deprogrammers and create “victims” to achieve their aim of destroying the Church. 

Source: bitterwinter.org