Japan Raids 2 Factory Sites Operated by Cult

In the wake of government promises to deal severely with the Aum Supreme Truth religious group, Japanese police raided two more cult compounds today.

Police armed with warrants entered factory sites operated by the group in Yamanashi and Gumma prefectures after two weeks of searches at other cult facilities. Authorities are looking for evidence linking the cult to the March 20 poison gas attack on Tokyo’s subways that killed 11 commuters and injured 5,500 others.

The latest government action came after Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama promised to uphold the freedom of religious beliefs but vowed that any group “borrowing the name of religion to commit impermissible acts will be dealt with sternly.”

Murayama made the statement Monday before a parliamentary budget committee.

Education Minister Kaoru Yosano went a step further, declaring that his ministry will go to court to seek the dissolution of the Supreme Truth sect if it is found to have committed the March 20 attack.

Both Murayama and Yosano also said they will study revising the law that empowers the government to designate organizations as religious bodies eligible for tax-exempt status. Yosano suggested that a requirement for openness in conducting activities might be added to the law.

Until police raided facilities of the Supreme Truth sect after the attack and discovered that the group had accumulated large quantities of dangerous chemicals, little was known about the sect. It is led by Shoko Asahara, a bearded “master” who claims to be seeking to ensure the survival of Buddhism through an Armageddon he foresees.

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Fumihiro Joyu, chief spokesman of the 14,000-member sect, appealed to about 300 journalists at the Foreign Correspondents Club on Monday for support against “government suppression.”

Joyu, a 32-year-old graduate of Waseda University who said he was hired by Japan’s National Space Development Agency only to quit in favor of a life in the sect, predicted that police will be unable to prove that the sect produced poison gas. He charged that police investigations of Supreme Truth facilities are part of a government plot to quash the sect.

“We are Buddhists who love peace and all living things, including human beings, and we have nothing to do with this nerve gas attack,” he said. He also denied involvement in last week’s attempted assassination of the chief of the National Police Agency.

Joyu also claimed that Asahara, who is in hiding, had been attacked by “biological germs” and is ailing.

“He is in a place in Japan where he can rest. His health is not very good,” Joyu said.

The spokesman, who earlier lived for a year and a half in Russia, where he helped establish a Supreme Truth chapter, said the group will use “all legal means” to protest any attempt to arrest Asahara, who he said gave followers only “spiritual inspiration.”

All “practical” activities of the group, Joyu said, are managed by a group of about a dozen top officials. All of the top officials are in hiding.