In his address to the Conference, Secretary van Eekelen complimented Japan's human rights record but emphasized that the country fails to protect an individual's right to freedom of religion. The Secretary was referencing the inhumane treatment of members of the Unification Church, who are subjected to forced conversions and domestic violence.
According to Secretary van Eekelen, the European and Japanese media do not report the human rights abuses in Japan of forced conversions because they do not oppose the practice.
According to the International Coalition for Religious Freedom, since 1966, more than 4,000 members of the Unification Church of Japan have been illegally confined in an attempt to make them leave the religion which they, as adults, freely chose to join. Victims who escaped captivity report the use of force, prison-like conditions, beatings, starvation and even rape by their captors.
To maintain its respectable record on human rights, Secretary van Eekelen says Japan "must show respect for tradition on the one hand but also the limits put on it by individual freedom, by the freedom of religion and the possibility to profess those religions freely in each country by each citizen."
For more information on the Japan abduction issue: http://stopjapanabductions.org/
Source: International Coalition for Religious Freedom
