1.
“Harassment”
Nichiren
Shoshu alleges that President Ikeda and other leaders have used phrases
such as “we must crush the Nikken sect”, and that by “crush” is meant “employ
physical violence”. This has, according to the Nichiren Shoshu, been translated
into a number of incidents of Gakkai mob violence.
A favorite is that, soon after the problems became public in 1991, the Gakkai hired the Japanese Mafia to drive around Taisekiji blasting anti-Nikken rhetoric from sound trucks. This is the third instance listed on the SG-eye “Harassment” page.
Sound trucks are an established method of electioneering in Japan. The Gakkai, at the time of this incident, was still seeking dialogue and rapprochement with the priesthood. The harangues were from an extreme right wing political faction, and were directed at the Soka Gakkai, with which Nichiren Shoshu was then still involved.
Nichiren Shoshu is aware of this, and the authors of the SG-eye site have been told this for years. They choose to continue to promulgate a story they know is not true.
The SG-eye centerpiece of this section is an article from Time Magazine:
YOSHIO YAHIRO, 69, DID NOT MERELY DECIDE TO QUIT SOKA GAKKAI; he resolved to take all the friends he could with him. A senior official in the sect’s branch at Fukuoka, Yahiro concluded nearly five years ago that he’d had enough of what he calls a vote-gathering and fund-raising machine that was growing increasingly violent. He announced his change of heart publicly and, with Jusen Kashiwazaki, chief priest at Kaishinji, a temple of the Nichiren Shoshu sect, set up a circle to encourage others to quit Soka Gakkai, too.In late 1990, just before his initial action against President Ikeda, Nikken met with a giant of the Japanese tabloid-writing industry, Isao Dan. Nichiren Shoshu members will deny this, but Mr. Dan has bragged about it.After about 100 sect members followed Yahiro’s example, Soka Gakkai believers decided to strike back. On April 13, 1991, some 300 young men dressed in navy blue suits and white shirts, a mob of Soka Gakkai members, marched into the Kaishinji temple during a religious service. Shoving aside worshippers, they seized Yahiro and Kashiwazaki. I thought I was going to die, recalls Yahiro, an asthmatic. He almost did. A large man grabbed Yahiro by his necktie and lifted him off the floor, and others took turns punching him until he passed out.
They demanded that we apologize to Ikeda for our disloyalty or they would drown us in the river outside, says Kashiwazaki, 43. Police arrived in 30 minutes and restored order. The incident was national news and marked the start of a full-blown war between Nichiren Shoshu and Soka Gakkai, which included clashes at other temples. In November 1991, Nichiren Shoshu’s chief priests severed ties with Soka Gakkai and excommunicated Ikeda. —TIME Magazine, November 20, 1995
Nichiren Shoshu itself is very careful to avoid making any public allegations of this type. However, it has forged a relationship with the tabloids, so Nichiren Shoshu can get the dirty work done while keeping itself seemingly “above the fray”.
There is no denying there was a confrontation of some sort at the temple in question. But there are the problems with Time’s story:
- Note that there was a mob of 300 men all dressed alike. No one in Japan, except the alleged victims, ever reported seeing such a seeable mob.
- Though the story says this incident was “national news,” it makes no attempt to name one news organization that featured it.
- The only source for the details of the incident in the story is the word of the alleged victims.
- The police “investigated”. In actual fact, the police arrived because somebody called them, and they promptly left when they saw what was happening. There is no mention in Time of any police report of any violence or severe injury to any of the parties.
- Yahiro claims serious injury. The people he alleges were responsible were present when the police arrived. Yet the police made no arrests, and did not even investigate, concerning themselves only with “restoring order”.
- Kashiwazaki and Yahiro run an organization devoted to “deprogramming” Gakkai members. Thus, they stand to profit from any anti-Gakkai innuendo they can generate.
Please remember that sensationalism sells magazines. Time was also very bold in reporting the charge that Cardinal Bernadin, the archbishop of Chicago, had molested a seminary student. The story lived, in Time and in other respected news outlets, for years. They accepted the charges as news. When Cardinal Bernadin’s accuser finally admitted he had made them up, Time and the other respected news organizations disposed of the story very quickly.
Remember also Richard Jewell, villified across the country as the person who planted the bomb at Olympic Park in Atlanta. Time was not shy about him, either, until the FBI finally cleared Jewell of all charges. Mr. Jewell subsequently won a number of defamation suits.
So Time comes upon an interesting incident arising out of an obscure but — to American sensibilities — curious religious schism. It is interesting. And if Time will take on the Bernadin and Jewell stories, why would it not run this one?
So where did the “300 Youth Division Assault Temple” story originate? This was posted on the World Wide Web by a Nichiren Shoshu member:
Honorary President Daisaku Ikeda’s Limitless Ambition(The following is from pages 103 to 105 of the Oct. '94 Bungei Shunju)
By: Isao Dan and Masao Okkotsu
Gakkai Members Storm NS TemplesBy Isao Dan, Nikken’s ally. A year before the Time story.“Soka Gakkai escalated the threat to priests, their family and temple members with physical assaults. One of the first incidents occurred at Kaishinji temple in Fukuoka City, Kyushu on April 13, 1991, when Soka Gakkai members stormed the temple and carried out mob violence.”
The other story SG-eye includes here is about a woman arrested for making threatening calls to Taisekiji. She was a Gakkai member, she did make the calls, and she was arrested and prosecuted for them. To think the SGI sanctioned her actions, or had anything to do with it, is absurd.
Equally absurd is the accompanying picture of a group of bullets. SG-eye captions the picture:
“Live ammunition sent to Nichiren Shoshu Head Temple Taisekiji. On April 5, 1992, live ammunition was fired into the main hall of Myo-onbo Temple on the grounds of head temple Taisekiji.”The clear implication is that, if bullets were fired into Taisekiji, they must have been fired by the Soka Gakkai. SG-eye is careful not to say this, but its inclusion is an indication of SG-eye’s and Nichiren Shoshu’s underhanded attempts to ruin the reputation of the Gakkai through hints and innuendo.
Odd behavior, again, for a group that “just” wants to monitor the SGI. Obviously, what it really wants is to attack the SGI, using any means it can, ethical or not.
On top of which, if those particular bullets were “fired into the main hall” of a temple, they were caught in mid-air before hitting anything. Look again at the picture — the bullets are pristine.
More rebuttal of SG-eye: