The Subversive Activities Prevention Act Against AUM

The first sitting of the court was drawing near, but the prosecution had not submitted the evidence. In the meagre amount of it that we were given all the important places containing the evidence by Mr. Asahara’s disciples were blackened. The prosecution explained, ‘Otherwise the accused may put pressure on his disciples and they will change their evidence’. I was surprised: Mr. Asahara was in a solitary confinement and did not meet with anybody except his lawyers. How then could he put pressure on his disciples?

When Mr. Asahara was made to testify against himself, he wrote by touch in his pad in large letters that his confession was invalid because it was extracted fraudulently by the prosecutor. We wanted to obtain the pad, but the prosecution and the police refused to give it to us. They insisted that the pad had to be kept by the police and therefore he (Mr. Asahara) could not give it to anybody. But the pad was bought by Mr. Asahara with his money, so the police could only take it for a time. Hence, it did not mean that Mr. Asahara had no right to give it to anybody. We lodged a request to the court to consider it illegal, but the police argued, ‘This pad contains the notes of the founder of the religious organization written in his own hand, it can greately inspire his followers and they may attempt to commit another crime or free their leader by force. If the pad is kept in the lawyers’ office they might burst into it willing to take posession of the pad. It is that dangerous! That is why we can’t give permission to take the pad out of the Police Agency’.

We were surprised and just could not understand it: the organization had been rooted out and crushed, who were those followers that were going to set Mr. Asahara free by force? In short, the police and the prosecution were simply trying to show everybody how dangerous AUM was. And the court approved of it.

Later, however, it agreed to my taking the pad on the condition that a bodyguard would accompany me to the Police Agency. It even put forward another condition. Now the pad had to be kept in the safe belonging to the Bar, not in the lawyers’ office.

Meanwhile the prosecution resumed actions aiming at applying the Subversive Activities Prevention Act to AUM. This act is really terrible. First the order is issued to liquidate the given organization and then all its members are put under arrest, and [thus] they annihilate the whole organization. Even the former Prime Minister XXX was said to be against it. But in October 1995 the then Socialist Party and Murayama’s government came out with a proposal to use the Subversive Activities Prevention Act against AUM.

In connection with it Mr. Asahara said, ‘All this talk about using the Subversive Activities Prevention Act [against AUM] is just pointless. Religion is a phenomenon of a different order. AUM Shinrikyo can’t be annihilated by this act. Religion can existed even when as many as three followers get together. And if the persecution continues, one can do [spiritual] practice on one’s own. Isn’t it so?’

When listening to this declaration, I seemed to understand Mr. Asahara’s attitude, it was the attitude of a religious person.

But quite a number of people were against this act for a different reason. They thought it was no good at all to use the act, which had not been used once for 50 years after the war, only against AUM. If the act was only used once, it would establish a precedent of using it in the future and prolong the existence of the Public Security Investigation Agency (PSIA). It would be unwise to influence the course of history applying this act only to one religious group. Many people were against using this act for this reason. The [annihilated] religious organisation presented no danger, and it was improbable that the remaining group of followers could start fighting using weapons. But as it turned out, Mr. Asahara’s words about the Subversive Activities Prevention Act in relation to AUM made the government once more suspicious, and it had doubts if the organization had stopped being dangerous and everything could be left as it was.

However, during the course of events Mr. Asahara changed his approach. Perhaps he thought it would be better this way or, being completely isolated from society, he might have decided to help people who supported him, but he resigned his post as founder of the religious organization, gave his consent to rename it and to remove the doctrine considered dangerous. He also gave orders to his followers forbidding unlawful actions. And at the court sittings when the possible application of the Subversive Activities Prevention Act was discussed, he objected to the statements of the Public Security Investigation Agency that the whole religious community, all its members participated [in one way or another] in carrying out the sarin gas attack [on the subway] and in other incidents.

Among the lawyers, who worked with the Subversive Activities Prevention Act, there was a man whom I knew very well. And I thought if we were able to use his abilities [as a lawyer], then the schemes of the PSIA could be destroyed. But during his preliminary discussion of the matter with Mr. Asahara a prison warder, who was present at the meeting, recorded the whole conversation. And because both the prison and the PSIA are parts of one structure with the Ministry of Justice at the head, all the secrets of that preliminary talk became known to the enemy – the PSIA.

I cooperated on all issues with the lawyers working with the Subversive Activities Prevention Act, because I believed it to be important to prevent using this act for the sake of lawyers’ professional activities as well. Or else the work of the lawyers defending AUM might also be considered as a crime. So, Mr. Asahara and I were well prepared for a debate in court to be able to destroy the main arguments in favor of using the Subversive Activities Prevention Act.

The court sittings, which went on for two months, resulted in a decision not to use the Subversive Activities Prevention Act against AUM Shinrikyo. And thus the plan of the PSIA safely failed. They lost hopelessly.

In principle, this intrigue using AUM-related incidents for political purposes must have faded, however it continued.

Meanwhile the mass media were trying their best to heighten feelings against AUM. The stream of groundless and sometimes simply comical information grew larger. There appeared even a new type of newspaper commentators – ‘AUM wottya’ (i.e. ‘AUM observer’). Putting on airs and pretending to be experts on the subject they wrote about what was happening with AUM and around it, passing their lies off as absolutely reliable information. Even some lawyers [outside the defense team] were involved in this “housewives’ gossip” of the mass media.

There was only one entrance/exit in the courtroom fitted with metal detector, and all personal things of those passing through it were carefully examined. But there were no people among the remaining group of followers who were going to help Mr. Asahara out… Still, a black prison car worth 100,000,000 yen was bought to bring Mr. Asahara to the court, and a specially equipped room worth 50,000,000 yen was allotted for visits [with the accused].

The Public Security Investigation Agency after giving up as hopeless its intention to apply the Subversive Activities Prevention Act to AUM managed to succeed in the realization of another scheme. A new anti-AUM law which placed the organization under surveillance was adopted. It was a very severe law because as a punishment the organization was placed under constant (vigilant) surveillance. It means that the organization is required to submit regularly to the PSIA the list of its members including information about their places of residence, to give details about real property such as the area of land under the buildings and the living space in the facilities occupied by them. What is more, the representatives of the Agency can turn up at any such facility at any time to see what is going on.

What the PSIA failed to achieve using the Subversive Activities Prevention Act it managed to realize with the law placing AUM under surveillance. The PSIA increased the number of its members and found a new sphere for its activities. They regularly burst in a body into facilities occupied by AUM followers of long standing. It is hard to imagine how many media people, policemen, prosecutors, judges and lawyers found an additional occupation for themselves and got a chance to live off AUM.

AUM Shinrikyo was stripped of its official status as a ‘religious legal entity’, its property was turned into money and either distributed among the victims of the incidents or confiscated by the state. Now the money to be paid off as the remaining part of compensations had to be earned by ordinary followers. Most of the remaining followers not only had anything to do with any of the crimes, but they did not have any idea that those incidents had relation to their religious organization. Both the money and property they needed for themselves but nevertheless donated to their religious community were taken by the state.

When all is said and done, the people who had suffered and happened to be abandoned as a result of the AUM-related incidents were ordinary followers.

The misery of the parents of those followers was unspeakable. Formerly they were fighting to get back their children who were in the community and then they had to shoulder all the responsibility for the crimes [allegedly] committed by them.

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