Japan’s Law on Sects Spurs Debate

The normally sleepy neighborhood of Isezaki has been in a frenzy since Fumihiro Joyu, a top leader of the Aum Supreme Truth sect responsible for a deadly 1995 nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway, took refuge here after his recent release from prison.

Right-wing groups patrol the streets surrounding the nine-story apartment building where Joyu is holed up, their sound trucks blaring anti-Aum pronouncements. Men with bullhorns stand outside the building shouting, “Joyu, get out! We know you have no place to go, but just get out of here!” Neighbors swarm, some decrying Joyu, others decrying all the commotion.

Similar protests have been held at Aum facilities across the country in recent months, as residents--who rarely tend to speak out in this country--seek to evict Aum members from their communities.

Two of Aum guru Shoko Asahara’s children, a 5-year-old son and an 18-year-old daughter, have been denied admission to a school in the city of Otawara, north of Tokyo. One community even built a moat outside an Aum facility to prevent members from returning.

The issue of how to deal with the cult--which is reported to be adding members as well as harboring $50 million from its computer retailing business--has ignited a civil rights struggle. It has brought to the fore the question of how to preserve the freedoms of speech, religion, assembly and choice of residence guaranteed by the Japanese Constitution while at the same time maintaining public safety.

It has also raised charges that law enforcement officials and legislators are fanning fears about Joyu to bolster police powers.

The parliament has already enacted a controversial law aimed at stripping civil liberties from “groups that have committed indiscriminate mass murder”--a law that clearly targets Aum but that does not name the cult directly.

The law--which took effect Dec. 27, two days before Joyu’s release--gives authorities the right to raid cult assembly sites without a search warrant, to unilaterally evict the group from its facilities around Japan and to seize offenders’ assets to compensate victims.

Meanwhile, Aum leader Asahara is still on trial. Of the 196 people indicted after the March 1995 attack--which killed 12 people and sickened thousands--162 were found guilty, including two who received death sentences that are being appealed, according to the Justice Ministry. Thirty-three remain on trial, and one person was found innocent.

Joyu, who was in Russia at the time of the attack, was jailed four years ago on charges of perjury and forgery related to an Aum land purchase. When he left a Hiroshima prison Dec. 29, dozens of camera crews, a helicopter and police stalked his every move.

Joyu, who was Aum’s spokesman and is widely considered to rank second only to Asahara, first flew to Tokyo, where a Hilton hotel turned down his request for a room. He then retreated into an apartment reportedly owned by Aum members here in nearby Yokohama.

Tsuguaki Hori, the Justice Ministry official charged with implementing the new legislation, insists that it is not unconstitutional.

“This law is targeted only at any group that committed indiscriminate mass murder, which should never be forgiven in terms of the public welfare. That is the very action that violates people’s basic interest or rights,” he said.

The public too seems squarely behind the law.

“We should put him away forever,” said Tokyo homemaker Naoko Nagasaki, 41, referring to Joyu. “He’s scary, scary, scary. I want Aum smashed.”

Said Yoshifu Arita, an investigative journalist who recently completed a book called “Man of Darkness: Fumihiro Joyu”: “What I’m saying will probably horrify any constitutional experts, but sanctuary and importance of life take precedence over any other law or right. You have to remember that this organization had plans to unleash 70 tons of [the nerve gas] sarin.”

Critics of the new law note that it comes atop one enacted last spring that allows police to listen in on phone calls without warrants. Yasahiro Yamazaki, editor of the weekly news photo magazine Flash, condemns that legislation as “constitutionally defective.”

“Aum isn’t really scary anymore,” he said. “The police are using this as an excuse, marshaling political power to expand their own powers.”

Shoko Egawa, an investigative journalist who was a friend of a lawyer killed by Aum members, agrees: “As much as I’m against Aum and its activities, I’m also against these inhuman policies.”

In addition to being unconstitutional, Egawa and others contend, the new law will only drive Aum members underground, making them that much harder to monitor.

“It will be a tranquilizer of the neighbors of Aum facilities,” she said. “But the essential matter will never be resolved with such regulations because followers will make efforts to escape from the disadvantages of the law.”

For instance, no one knows whether to believe Joyu’s assertion after his release that he was giving up his title of seitaishi, or great teacher, within the cult. Comparable doubts exist about the group’s recent statement that it would “halt religious activities completely.” It has also issued an apology for its deadly activities.

Such apologies are of small comfort to Japanese.

“Here, the solution is for them to leave,” said Hitoshi Fukuda, 28, who was walking by the commotion around Joyu’s new quarters.