Kiyomi Miyama, “From a Letter to U.S. Congressman Ed Royce, February 25, 2014”

I had been living in Korea when I returned to my parents’ home in Japan for the holidays. Little did I know that my parents had been carefully coached by a man named Takashi Miyamura, a professional deprogrammer, on how to kidnap, confine and break my faith.

One night, after dinner, my parents started questioning me about my faith. My parents became frustrated with me and my father grabbed me by my hair and slapped my face many times. Then I was dragged out of the house to a waiting van by my family and some relatives who had been hiding elsewhere in the house.

I was taken to a small apartment that was prepared for my confinement and kept in a tiny 8 foot by 8 foot room at the back of the apartment. The front door was locked many times with chains and locks.The windows used glass that was re-enforced with wire so that it could not be broken through, as well as secured so they could not be opened, and covered with plastic so one could not see in or out.

I was shocked and angry. So in protest I did not speak a word with the ‘deprogrammer’ or my family for six months. Since I did not speak a word for six months, my brother got angry. He grabbed my hair and struck my head against the wall over and over again. Then he threatened me and said “You must talk with the deprogrammer.” I was terrified and gave up my protest and started to talk to the deprogrammer.

Most people do not know what it feels like to be held against your will for years in what is essentially a box. I tried not to have any emotions because when I started to think about freedom, the sensation was like fingernails scraping a chalkboard very loudly in my head. I could not stop this sensation until I regained control over my emotions and tried to feel nothing again. I was in this kind of emotional state when my brother beat my head against the wall and he broke my will to fight back.

As I hadn’t talked for a long time, the muscles of my mouth didn’t work normally. I couldn’t speak. The vowels didn’t come out the way that they should have. And Mr. Miyamura, the ‘deprogrammer,’ did not like that I could not talk well. He grabbed my hair, took me to the kitchen, and put my head into the sink. He turned on the tap and said “Wash your mouth out!” His true deprogramming began from that day and continued for three months. He did not just break my faith, he broke me as a person. It was mental and physical torture.

One time the door was unlocked for a moment. I saw a chance to escape so I ran for my life. I was outside! I yelled, “Help me! Help me! I am being held against my will!” But my family caught me. They dragged me back inside.

Somebody must have had heard my screams and called the police because shortly thereafter, the police came to the door. I thought that I was saved. But the police never spoke to me. They never tried to see if I was OK. They only spoke to my parents.

My parents told the police that I had joined the Unification Church and that they were trying to change my mind. They told the police that this is a ‘family matter.’ The police said OK, and left. But behind the door, my brother had forced me onto the floor. His hand covered my mouth so I could not scream.

I went through mental and bodily attacks for nine months. Finally they broke me. I had truly given up my faith, and said goodbye to God. I told Him, if He needed me, He would have to come back and get me. I could no longer keep Him in my heart.

I believed they would now let me go. But even after I had given up my faith, they would not release me because I was married to a Korean man. They did not like that he was Korean and they did not like that he was also a Unification Church member. They required me to annul my marriage as a condition of my release. They would not even accept a divorce. During the annulment, I was not allowed to see my husband or to speak to my husband. I was just given papers to sign. They handled the rest. When my marriage annulment was complete, I was finally released after 2 years and 7 months of confinement.

The aftereffects of my confinement and torture were severe. While I was never professionally diagnosed, I believe I had PTSD. I was depressed. Half of my hair turned white. I didn’t know why I was alive. I looked at food and didn’t know why I needed to eat. I could not sleep. I could no longer live in Japan. So I escaped to Korea where I received counseling and became able to talk about myself like this. I do not want to live in Japan because I do not trust the government to protect me. Even now, because I am speaking out like this, I am afraid the deprogrammers may harm me when I return to Japan. And if that should happen, the government will pretend it did not happen, neither the police nor the courts will help, and I will disappear.

The aftereffects for my parents were severe as well. They had used all of their savings, plus borrowed money from relatives to pay Mr. Miyamura his fees. Someone estimated this for me at about 40,000 Euros. My father died shortly thereafter of cancer. My mother’s hair turned completely white, and she had a brain hemorrhage due to diabetes which was made more severe due to stress. She is now brain- dead and laying in the hospital.

I know many Japanese women living in Korea with Korean husbands who are afraid to return to Japan, lest they go missing. They already know that the Japanese police and courts will not help. If they disappear, their husbands will become single fathers, and their children will be motherless. In the Human Rights Without Frontiers report, you’ll find the stories of Ms. Rie Imari, Ms. Emiko Motoki, Ms. Kozue Terada, and Ms. Hiroko Tomizawa, my personal hero. These are my friends. I know them by name. All of them have been abducted and confined for prolonged periods, sometimes on more than one occasion. They all pursued criminal justice, and had their cases dismissed.

I also know many survivors living in the United States. One in particular, Ms. Mitsuko Antal, was a newlywed of 5 months when she was abducted. Her American husband went crazy looking for her. She finally escaped by jumping from a 2nd floor balcony breaking her vertebra but getting help from a passing car. She and her husband sued her parents and the ‘deprogrammer’ and took the case all the way to the Japanese Supreme Court because they were afraid she would be abducted again. The courts admitted that she was held against her will, but they dismissed all claims saying this was a ‘family matter.’ They even refused to enjoin the minister and family from abducting her again. This American family was wronged by the Japanese courts. I would like to see them receive justice

I am now a witness for Toru Goto’s civil trial because after I had renounced my faith, my ‘deprogrammer,’ Mr. Miyamura, brought me to Mr. Goto’s room to help break his spirit. Mr. Goto had been held in the same building as I, and as a ‘good faith’ gesture, I was required to visit the rooms of believers who had not lost faith. My fight to save the women of my small community extends to helping Mr. Toru Goto because if Japan will allow a man to be held in a private prison for 12 years with impunity, then there is no hope for us women. The Jehovah’s Witnesses had the same abduction and confinement problem until they won a big court case. I believe if we can win Mr. Toru Goto’s case, these heinous crimes may stop.

Mr. Goto had been held for over 12 years. He had been thrown out of confinement in February 2008 when they finally gave up on breaking him. The doctor who saw him immediately admitted him and reported his condition to the police, as he was skeletal. But the police did not come. In June of 2008, Mr. Goto regained his strength and filed a criminal complaint against his deprogrammers and his family. On 9 December 2009, the prosecutor’s office decided to waive indictment on the grounds of insufficient evidence. Mr. Goto is currently in the middle of his civil trial. Please watch this trial and see if justice can be had in Japan.

Caroline Cecile, Kidnapped in Liege Belgium

At that time I was just a young member. I had joined the Unification Church May 1 St of that year. My parents were very worried because they had heard so many bad things about the Unification church and particularly about Reverend Moon, such as brainwashing, messing up young people s mind, sexual activity. Such were some of the false witness done by the established churches, and the media against the,UC, and particularly its Korean founder. I lived then with a team of members in an apartment in the city of Liege in Belgium.

That day I was witnessing with another sister, Francoise in downtown Liege. Suddenly walking towards me, I saw an old friend of mine that I grew up with. His name is George. It was mind-boggling that he even found me there. We greeted each other and I introduced him to Francoise. He told me he had heard I had joined the movement. He happened to be in Liege and wanted to get together and hear all about it. He reminded me that we used to discuss about religion and the bible in the past.

I invited him to come to the center where we could talk, to which he agreed. He said, he had a car and he could drive us all there. As we were walking toward the place where he had parked his car, his twin brother, Charlie, married to a cousin of mine, also walks up toward me to another great surprise to me, yet possible since they are twin brothers. So I invited them both. When we got to the car, there was another guy there, which George introduced as his friend. George was the driver, his friend was sitting in the passenger seat, Charlie went in first to sit in the back on the left side, me in the middle, and Francoise came in last,sitting next to me on the right side.

Arriving at the center, George stops the car, Francoise opens her door to get out; I had my right leg out the door when Charlie placed his arms around me, and pulled me back forcing me to lie my upper body on his laps. George’s friend turns around, brings my leg back in, closed the door, all the while George presses hard on the gas pedal, speeding toward the nearby freeway.

I shouted, why are you doing this?! But got no answer. I knew then what was happening of course; I also knew they had a plan to get me deprogrammed, as I was not the first Moonie to be kidnapped to undergo deprogramming. We were on the freeway driving toward Brussels, where George has an apartment he stays at when on business in the area.

The funny thing was, I felt a wave of calm wash over me; no fear at all, while all three of them were very nervous.

On the way there, Charlie was trying to make me sign a paper that acknowledged that I was in the car of my own volition.

“Are you out of your mind? I will sign nothing!” I told Charlie. “How can you do this? I trusted you! You make a decision without asking my opinion, trying to understand what my stand is.”

Charlie said after a moment, “I see that you are not zoned out, or brainwashed …”

About 30 mins before hitting Brussels, George parks the car outside a mansion. And I knew, again because of previous such activity on our members, that this was the house of a judge, who was known to be high in the ADFI organization, responsible for the kidnapping of young people adhering to new religious movements, and particularly our church, which was nicknamed by the media, the Moonies. George went to the house by himself. He took a very long time there inside that house. Finally he came back to the car, said simply,

“We were supposed to meet another person (I knew he meant the actual person doing the deprogramming, oftentimes, a priest), but he was not available until the next day. You can either stay at my house, in Renaix (my hometown) or yours.” I said, “I’ll go to mine.”

I thought in my head, I could easily leave from there, take the train back. George then said, he needed to stop by his apartment in Brussels to grab his luggage. Once there, he parked the car on the adjacent street (they were quite clearly advised of how to proceed in this unlawful activity). George leaves the car to walk to his apartment, but never comes back.

After a 20 mins wait, Charlie steps out of the car, goes to the corner to see if his brother was coming, came back, said the police is there, you,are free to go. I was stunned, but I left. I knew where I was, knew my way to the church’s headquarters.

Both leader and the members were happily surprised to see me safe and sound. I found out then also what had occurred on their side.

First of all, when the car started to drive away with me, Francoise had run after the car, and was able to read the license plate. She ran to the center, reported my kidnapping, and the Police was called. Irmi, Belgium National leader at that time also called Austrian (her country of origin and where she joined the UC), National leader, Peter Koch. The whole church went on a chain prayer condition. I remember how I felt this wave of calmness wash over me … I was so amazed, and felt an energy inside me I had not felt before. I felt so strong in my faith, and the incredible love and support from the leaders and members made me feel this is where I belong, where I must be. This is the will of God, and I felt His love through this ordeal. I was back in Liege that same evening. I had been so protected.

I filed a complaint, also implying my parents as being part of this whole criminal activity because they were the ones who had paid for it. However, eventually I let that go.George went to jail, but was released on the next Monday, my father paid his bail.

The most painful thing of this ordeal for me was the absence of trust and even respect of my family. No one in my family ever thought about asking me why I had joined. They trusted strangers like the ADFI over me, their daughter. I was 23 years old.

Toru Goto, “Final Days of Incarceration”

In November 2007, my elder brother’s wife criticized me by saying, “How much do you think it costs to maintain this apartment? Do you know how badly you damaged the properties of this apartment? These must be repaired when we move out.” The damaged properties she mentioned were the kitchen shelves and accordion curtains which I had broken in in February, 2001 during repeated escape attempts. (I was overpowered every time by family members.) It looked like the financial burden to my family to maintain the apartment was becoming harder and harder. Also, they had a sense of crisis that they would have more troubles if I would carry out another hunger strike and starve to death. Around that time, I recall that members of my family started to have different opinions as to what to do with my confinement.

Around January, 2008, I demanded a mirror to cut my hair and entered the room near the front gate where my younger sister was. My sister said to me in a strong tone, “Don’t come in,” and shoved me away by pushing my chest with both hands. I unsteadily stepped back, and my back hit the cupboard. My physical strength was at that low of a level at that time. However, at least two people stayed in the apartment at all times to monitor me.

Around 4 p.m. on Feb. 10, 2008, my elder brother and his wife, my mother, and my younger sister ordered me to move out of the apartment saying, ”If you have no intention to acknowledge the issues of the Unification Church, get out of here immediately!” Fact was, I was debilitated mentally and physically at that time. As a result of my third hunger strike, which annoyed my family, they forced me to endure slow starvation – what they called “the food sanction” – and virtually no exercise for 1 year and 10 months. I felt a sense of despair and emptiness as the confinement became protracted. In addition, I had a sense of having lost everything. I had been isolated from society for 12 years. I had nowhere to go, and I would be homeless even if I were released. I asked my family for some money: “Give me some money. Otherwise I can’t catch a train.” My brother declined, saying, “No.”

I Fought to Stay in the Apartment

I was angry. They had deprived me of precious time and many opportunities by the confinement for 12 years. Now, when things had not gone well, they were kicking me out without any money. I was furious about their outrageous act. I fiercely protested by saying, “It’s cruel to kick me out without giving me any money after a 12-year confinement.” We got into a scuffle, and my family forcefully tried to remove me out of the apartment. I resisted in vain by holding on to kitchen shelves, accordion curtains and any other places which I could, but I was lifted up, and they pushed me out of the front door. I was wearing just a house dress without shoes. I was pushed down (facing up) to the concrete floor of the hallway in front of the front door.

I couldn’t get up and remained lying on the concrete floor when I overheard my brother’s voice, saying “Shoes, Shoes.” Afterwards, someone from inside threw my shoes at me. Then the front door was shut and locked. The back of my hand and wrist bled, and my sweater was torn. I banged on the front door, and I protested against the outrageous treatment in a loud voice. When I repeated the protest, my brother shouted, “Shut up!” from inside.

I had no other way but to get on an elevator and go to the ground level. At the ground level, I saw letter boxes. A tag was placed to the room #804 letter box, and it was written “GOTO.” Also, I learned that the address of the apartment was Ogikubo 3-47-15, Suginami-ku.

Although I was free, I was physically debilitated. I had no personal belongings, no clothes to change into, no guarantee of job and life. I didn’t know where my friends were. I was attacked by a feeling of anxiety as to how I would survive the situation. As I didn’t know where the Unification Church was in Ogikubo area, I started to walk to the Unification Church Head Office in Shibuya.

I found a police sub-station soon after I started to walk towards east on Oume Street. I entered the police sub-station, and I complained that I had been confined in the apartment called Ogikubo Flower Home and that I had just been released.

Police Refuse to Help

The police officer seemed to be shocked at the beginning. But once I started to talk about the details of the confinement, which was that my family members abducted and confined me for forcible conversion away from the Unification-Church faith, the police officer’s attitude suddenly changed, and he started to look at me suspiciously. Though I did my best to explain, he didn’t treat my story seriously by saying, “Weren’t your parents together with you? Didn’t they feed you?” I couldn’t help but think that to him it was ridiculous and complete nonsense.

At the very least, I wanted to borrow some money. I said, “May I borrow some money as I have nothing on me?” The officer said, “Don’t you have any acquaintances in Tokyo?” I only could say, “I was just released from the 12-year confinement, and I have no one to reply on…” The request was rejected since I was an unidentified person. I asked him to give me directions to Shibuya, and I started to walk again.

Fortunately, I could still walk for a while. Even while suffering an empty stomach during the no-food sanction, I had been doing some exercises in the confinement room for 15 minutes daily. It looked like the exercises had worked.

However, since I had not walked for a long time, my knees suddenly started to get sore when I entered Shibuya Ward. At Hatsudai, my knees became very weak, and I had to bend forward. I had to support my knees by both hands in order to walk. Soon, I found a walking stick and used it. I continued at a very slow pace. I passed by a Ramen (noodle) shop and a donut shop. I couldn’t resist the smell. In fact, I was dying to get into the shop and to eat as much as I could. But there was no other option for a penniless man but to keep walking. I turned right to the Yamate Street, and I saw Shinjuku’s skyscrapers. I then got a real sense of being liberated, thinking, “Oh! I’m finally free”

I was worried about the time, thinking, “I have to get there before the Head Office closes.” It took about four hours to get to the intersection of Shoto 2-Chome in Shibuya. But I couldn’t walk at all at the intersection due to acute pain in my knees. Also, it was already at night, and I didn’t know which way I should go. At that time, I was wearing a sweater which was torn by the scuffle, worn-out knit pants, and leather shoes. My hair did not look good since I had been cutting it by myself. I was using a stick, and I must have looked homeless. It was the coldest month of the year. I realized that I might die that night. I could be frozen to death. I mentally prepared myself for martyrdom.

Saved by a Church Sister

I was determined to go forward as much as I could even if I had to crawl. I started to ask passersby how to get to the Unification Church. The second person I approached was coincidentally a Unification Church member who was on her way home. Even if it was by accident, I was surprised by the mysterious encounter. I felt God’s guidance, and I shivered with sensation. When I explained the situation to the sister, she taught me how to get to the Head Office. After she realized that I couldn’t walk, she called a taxi and paid the fare for me.

I had not been treated as a human being during the 12-year confinement. I was so touched by her warm heart that I had not felt for so many years that I couldn’t stop tears running down. Thus, finally I arrived at the Unification Church Head Office alive.

I explained the circumstances to the security man at the Head Office. He couldn’t believe my story of 12- year-confinement and treated me as a suspicious person. But he contacted someone who was in charge of abduction/confinement issue. The man said to the security, “I have information that a man called Goto was held in confinement for many years. This information had come from a member who had escaped her confinement.” The security man started to believe me and let me enter.

The staff members served dinner for me and offered to let me stay there for the night. At bed time, I went to the toilet. But I only could crawl to the toilet. In fact, my physical state was so weakened that I couldn’t use the toilet. (I couldn’t stand up.) Around midnight, I was taken to Isshin Hospital in KitaOtsuka by taxi. I was diagnosed at the emergency department as suffering severe malnutrition. I immediately was admitted to the hospital as I was unable to walk.

After several examinations, I was diagnosed as having generalized muscular weakness, muscular atrophy, and anemia as well as malnutrition.

Toru Goto at the hospital after 12 years and 5 months of captivity.

Toru Goto at the hospital after 12 years and 5 months of captivity.

My Life After Hospitalization

I was admitted to the hospital around 2:00 a.m. on Feb 11, 2008. I was unable to walk due to acute pain in my knees when I tried to stand up. I had to use a wheelchair for 17 days, after which I used a walker. On March 4, 2008, I started to use both a walker and crutches. From March 10, 2008 I used a cane, but I was not recovered enough to go up or down stairs. My rehabilitation continued, and I was discharged from the hospital on March 31, 2008. However, I could not run nor walk briskly. If I walked for 30 minutes for shopping, I felt pain in my knees and ankles, and I had muscle aches in my thighs and calves on the following day.

I could sit cross-legged on a floor, but I could not sit (in the Japanese way) with my legs tucked under me as I had pains in my ankles. Even now, three years after the release, I feel a sense of discomfort if I sit in the Japanese way. Also, after leaving the hospital, I couldn’t get up from the cross-legged position unless my body was supported by my arms touching the floor. I strongly believe that the 12-year-confinement and the damage to my knees caused by walking to the Church headquarters have left me with enduring after-effects.

A few days later, after admission to the hospital, I suffered from gastroenteritis and had persistent diarrhea. It seemed that my level of immunity was down due to the protracted confinement. I hardly had glimpsed the outside world during the 12 years and 5 months of confinement. After the light bulb on my table lamp blew out at the beginning of 2006, I had to read without the lamp since my captors did not replace it. Also they stopped providing eye drops. My eyesight was 1.5 before the confinement, but it had dropped to 0.2 at the time of release from the confinement. Before the confinement, I could drive without corrective lenses. I can’t drive without glasses now. Of course, my driver’s license had expired, so I had to start all over again from scratch to get a license.

Two days after hospitalization began, Mr. Kazuhiro Yonemoto, a journalist, visited me in the hospital. I recounted the story of the confinement to him, and I accepted his request to take some photos of me for the interview. The next day, Mr. Yonemoto visited the Ogikubo Sunflower Home (the confinement apartment), and also visited Mr. Miyamura’s home for an interview. Miyamura [Mr. Goto’s deprogrammer] came out, and he and Yonemoto could talk for a short while. According to Yonemoto, Miyamura admitted that he visited the confinement apartment to convert me. Also, Miyamura explained my severe malnutrition to Yonemoto this way: “It was because Goto did fasting.” (See Kazuhiro Yonemoto’s statement, dated on March 5, 2008.) Fact was, it was in April, 2004 when I started my first hunger strike. Miyamura’s last visit to me in the apartment was February, 2001. It is very clear that Miyamura had kept in constant contact with my family and continued to conspire to confine me.

I had no choice but to carry out hunger strikes in order to press for release from the confinement. If I had not gone on hunger strikes three times, risking my life (21 days in 2004, 21 days in 2005 and 30 days in 2006), I would not have been released. If they had resumed normal meals after the hunger strike in Apr 2006, my weight would have been back to normal at that time I was released on Feb.10, 2008, which was 1 year and 11 months later after the hunger strike.

I would like to add that I attended the Unification Church’s wedding ceremony in September, 2008 after the release, and got married. As my wife did not have brothers, and the family had no heir, I decided to change to my surname to my wife’s surname, which is Iwamoto. I now feel some small happiness to be married and to settle down in my 40s after such a long time.

At the End

Japan’s constitution guarantees religious freedom. The acts of confining me for 12 years and 5 months to make me leave the church, making me suffer physically and mentally in order to coerce me to abandon my faith are nothing but torture and must not be tolerated. What kind of crime did I commit to deserve 12 years and 5 months confinement? My elder brother and his wife chose by their free will to become the Unification Church members and had faith in the Unification Church. After they left church, they lied by claiming, “They were forced to join the church against their will and forced to get involved with the church activities.” Then they filed a lawsuit called “Lost Youth Compensation Case” against the Unification Church and won compensation from the church.

By contrast, I was continuously confined in a small room from the time I was 31 years old until I was 44 years old. They deprived me of not only my freedom of religion, freedom of marriage, freedom of choice in employment, freedom of movement and freedom of vote, but they denied and violated my human dignity. They spoiled my precious life. I continued to endure criticism, smear and defamation which degraded my humanity, and also physical violence in the confinement room. I endured forced starvation, while I was continuously pressured to withdraw from the church.

I was not allowed any medical care; I was not allowed to go to a doctor even with a temperature of 40 degrees [Celsius]. I was not released even though I was near death with starvation. I have never heard of such crimes. But my family members and Miyamura are unrepentant and poised to evade responsibility by saying – for example, “I didn’t know that the front door of the apartment was locked by a padlock.”

The more I experienced the cruel and brutal treatments from the captors, the more I was convinced that Miyamura and my family members were evil creatures. In spite of physical and mental abuses during the 12 years and 5 months confinement, one of the reasons I didn’t lose my faith was that I was determined not to join such an evil group even at the brink of death. Also, I was filled with a sense of responsibility that I had to expose these evil human rights violations to the public.

I would like to ask you to judge fairly, and wish you to raise an alarm against the forcible deprogramming practices which are occurring even now carried out by the deprogrammers including Matsunaga or Miyamura. I also wish not only for my personal relief, but that these human-rights violations during coercive conversion shall stop.

Toru Goto, “Testimony of Mr. Toru Goto”

persecution.jpg

I'd like to testify to you today about my experience of being confined and kidnapped for 12 years and 5 months. It's a long period so if I tell you everything, you'll be here until tomorrow morning, so I'd like to focus just on the points where I was in my greatest struggles.

I'd like first to explain to you about the apartment where I was confined. What you see now is an 8 story building nearly in the center of Tokyo, and I was in this room for 12 years. This is how the door was locked. There was a chain this way from the inside and there was also a padlock on it. This is the window. You can see there is wire mesh in the glass. Normally, with a window lock you can still open the window, but when you see the hole in the middle there, you have to enter the key and turn it in order for the window to open. All the windows were locked this way, so they couldn't be opened by me.

This is the layout of the apartment. It's a good layout to confine someone in. Two sisters have been confined in such an apartment in the same building on a different floor. The reason why this layout is good for confining people is this. I was in the bottom, in the 6 mats room. Above that there is a kitchen and a bathroom, and a place for washing up. Of course I went to the bathroom, and I took a bath. You cannot be there for 12 years and not take a bath, but this was the layout so the person just can live in the space below without having to go anyplace else. Because it's an eight story building you have to go by the main entrance in order to get in and out, and you cannot go to the main door of the apartment without going through the other 2 rooms, and you have to go through another door to get to the main exit of the apartment.

This is an apartment that has been reconstructed in order to confine people. This is a place in Tokyo called "Okikubo," so please remember this place. This is where this abduction started. The place got reconstructed so that the people confined there, especially the Unification Church members, could not get out unless they leave the church. So it's a confining apartment building. This is what was going on and even today is going on around Japan; there is this kind of thing going on in various places. I'd like you to know that although Japan is a democratic country and legislatively there is a guarantee from the constitution, still these things are going on. Remember that fact.

So let me tell you what was going on in that apartment. First of all -- and this is true with many people who were confined -- a person being confined wants somehow to get a message out. So many people cry out, they scream, and the person next door can hear that voice saying, "I am confined here, I want to be helped!" They cry out that way, so that's what I did in the beginning. This is how I shouted: "This is a confinement place, help, call the police!" Day after day I'd cry out like that but then after a while I began to realize that nobody is going to hear me. Maybe I need to be louder, maybe if I have a higher pitch in my voice it might work. So I began to cry out like a woman's voice and that kind of higher pitch in my voice was loud, but then my confiners would cover me with sleeping quilts. Several people were with me in the apartment and they would put me under the quilts so nobody could hear me shouting.

Then when I was taking a bath, there was an exhaust fan above the bathtub and sometimes through it I could hear the sound of other people in the building taking a bath. I thought if I could shout through that fan they could hear me, so I shouted and cried out into that as loud as I could. Then the person who was trying to get me to leave the church would come into the bathroom. He immediately would grab me by the back of the neck and pull me down and drag me all the way to the kitchen and drag me to the back room. That was the way I was spending my days.

The man who tried to convince me to leave the church was a man named "Miyama Takashi." He's among many people who are doing these kinds of activities. Some of them are Christian ministers. So what do they say to the people when they have them in such a confinement? "You're being confused, you're being lied to, and you're not able to think with your own mind. You're the slave of Sun Myung Moon, so that's why your family and I brought you here to protect you, so you will never leave this place till you learn to think with your own mind."

They would start feeding people all the nasty and terrible lies and rumors about True Father, True Parents and the True Family. All these one-sided things they start feeding them.

This "Miyama Takashi" would come to Korea several times and he would gather materials from former members and other people in Korea, then he would take those things back to Japan, and he'd use these materials to try to convince the Unification Church members to deny their faith. This content that he was telling us was really terrible but we had to listen. Of course, it's all untrue, the separation of blood for example, and all the terrible lies about the sexual scandals involving Father. He would give that content with very graphic terms, very concrete. They know that even if they would leave that stuff in my room, I wouldn't read it. Therefore they would sit beside me and read it to me and force me to listen to it.

As I was listening I felt as though my spirit self had been slashed, cut by a sharp knife. That cannot be true, it's so shocking. I knew that this is not true but being in a confined place I was forced to listen to it day after day.

When we think about True Parents we think about the bright aura and the glorious mission they have, but that image of Father slowly began to change. It became unimpressive and began to crumble. This is why most of the members who are confined and are put through that kind of experience -- seven out of ten people -- are not able to endure this kind of pain. You may wonder why so many strong people left the church. It is because of these confinement places. This is terrible place where this false information is repeated over and over, day after day and eventually several members are not able to endure that kind of experience. So they lose their faith.

I also had this experience for just a brief moment, to think that Father actually is a satanic existence, and I could feel Satan whispering in my ear, "Is this the kind of man you believe is the Messiah? Are you going to continue to believe in this kind of man?" This is the kind of incredible spiritual experience that I was going through.

When I was confined I was visited by many former members. Those are people who were confined and through this kind of experiences left the church, and these are all people who loved God, True Parents and worked hard in the church. I was also visited by many members who had been working with me in the church, even my team leader in a workshop, who left the church and tried and hoped to convince me to leave the church as well. She was blessed with the 30,000 couples blessing but after that she was confined, and when she got out of that she returned to the church, but then she was confined a second time.

After the first time of confinement and escape there are good chances that people opposing will try to do it a second and a third time. That' s why now in Japan there are many members who change their names and addresses and live underground in order to avoid the repetition of this kind of experience. This team leader came to me and she said," Goto, I'm glad to see you after a long time." She said, "You're doing something really stupid, why don't you understand this?" and she began to cry in tears, but I said, " I don't think what you said is right". Then she began to shout, "Aren't you listening to me?" There was a cup of green tea that was still hot, and she picked it up and threw it into my face. I became wet. When she was my team leader she loved me so much, she guided me really wonderfully. I could never imagine that she would do this to me, that she would throw the tea in my face. She wasn't this kind of person before. She was a wonderful person when she was with me in the church.

So many former members like that visited me in my confinement place; they all looked very different from when they were in the church. They don't have hope, there is something about them very different. The only thing they live for is to oppose the Unification Church. That's the way they had to change. These people would try to convince me to deny my faith, and after a while it psychologically become difficult to endure. I really came to the border where I didn't know if I can continue with my faith. This is the place where many people have been confined, and you begin to feel you would rather die than betray True Parents. At one point I was in so much in pain. So at night I'd pray, "God, if possible please don't let me wake up tomorrow, please just take me to the Spirit World tonight." Sometimes I'd pray like that.

I was confined when I was 31 years old, and I was approaching 40 in confinement, and I began to wonder whether I am going to be separated from society for the rest of my life. I couldn't scream, I couldn't make noise, so I decided that the only thing I could do is to fast. "I'm going to protest, to fast." So I fasted for 21 days on 2 occasions, and on the third occasion for 30 days.

Then my family was more and more unhappy with that. After my 30 day fast my physical strength was at the limit. I thought I needed to stop the fast, so I called my family in and I said I will stop fasting. I told them because I expected that they would give me some food the next day, but the next day I was given no food. So I said to them, "I'm sorry. I actually stopped fasting." And the family said to me, "You are ready to die, right? Why don't you fast till you die?" So I thought, "Maybe it's God's will that I die here." But I decided, "That's not right, I can't die here." So I asked them honestly to give me food, and from that day they did.

You know when you cook rice, you cook with water, and so they would take the water from cooking the rice, put it into a small bowl and give me this water. That's what they gave me 3 times a day and a sport drink once a day. I thought I should fast. I thought maybe they were doing this to help me recover from my fast. But this kept up a week, 2 weeks, and 3 weeks. They were serving me the same way, the same food. This was the same as not eating anything at all. And I began to feel I may die of hunger.

There was a refrigerator right in front of me in the room. I thought I can take some spices and eat those spices like mayonnaise, some sauce, ketchup, and maybe they would not find out. I would endure by taking a little bit from that each day. But after a while I discovered that someone took all those away and hid them so I couldn't find them. Of course, it was very different from Father's situation in Hungnam, but it reminded me very much of that. And when you're hungry like that, you begin to lose your rational thinking. You are desperate to eat something, anything, and in the kitchen sink there were some apple peels and some cut-off portions of carrots, and I ate those in a way that no one would notice. But then soon they stopped leaving those things in the sink.

And finally I thought of the rice that was not cooked. Before you cook rice you have to let it sit for a while in water, so I thought of eating the raw rice that was sitting, soaking in water. That was hard but I would put it in my mouth and chew it until it became liquid before swallowing it. Then I tried to grab a whole handful, and then they put water in there and cooked the rice in that. I was sitting at the same table with them. And they would start to think, "It seems the rice these days is kind of watery." Because I would take some rice they were cooking it with too much water compared to the amount of rice, and they began to notice that there was too much water in their rice. I kept asking God to help me so they would not find out what I was doing, and fortunately until the end, they didn't realize that I was doing that, until I was released there, which was about 2 years later.

Gradually, they began to give me more food over that period. They were eating regular meals but I was given pickled, white radish, roots and things like that, the same menu every day. This is how they explained, "You did all that work in the Unification Church We went all through this trouble to create this environment for you, but you don't try to think for yourself, you don't try to find out about the Unification Church on your own. That kind of person doesn't deserve to eat regular meals." That is how they justified cutting down my food.

On February 10 last year, 2008, my family came into my room. They asked me, "Do you want to find out about the Unification Church?" But over the years I had never changed my position. Over the years I was telling them, "You call this protection? This is not protection, this is arrogance. This is confinement and an attempt to take away my Unification Church faith. Stop this crime, stop this human rights violation!" That is what I kept telling them during the time I was kept there. When my older brother heard me saying that he said, "OK. Get out of here." I was 44 years old then. I left there without a penny in my pocket. I was angry about that. I had an argument with them but I was malnourished, so they picked me up, and they threw me out of the front door. They tossed me out, and my older brother picked up a pair of shoes that I was wearing when I was first confined and threw them out at me. So that is how I was released after 12 years and 5 months.

I'm truly grateful to God and True Parents for letting me maintain my faith during that long period, but this is after 12 years. I didn't know what to do after I was thrown out of the apartment just like that. The only church location that I knew in my head was the Headquarters Church in Japan, so I started walking towards that. There was a police box on my way, so I entered there and I told them what had been done to me. I said, "I was confined there in that apartment right there for 12 years," but I was not expecting much.

Many times in these confinement situations, the police are actually involved, but the police officers always say this is something between the parents and their children, "We are not going to get involved," and in most cases the police refuse to have anything to do with it. I was not expecting much from that policeman, and sure enough he didn't do anything. He refused to listen to what I had to say. So I said, "All right. But any way, I was thrown out of the apartment without a penny in my pocket. Please give me at least a train fare," but he said, "I can't give money to a stranger," so I asked him to draw a map then. I used that map to walk to the Headquarters Church.

I later saw it was a distance of about 10 km. I thought maybe I could walk about 3 hours. But because I had not been walking for a long time, about half way there my knees began to hurt and I couldn't continue to walk normally. So I picked up a stick that was lying by the side of the street and used it as a staff in order to continue to walk. Finally I came to the main road in the vicinity of the Headquarters Church. I was in so much pain, and I couldn't walk anymore. This was in February and it was a cold period, and I was kicked out in the evening. This was late at night and I was malnourished. And I was afraid that if were to climb the stairs and fall, I might freeze to death. I was wearing a sweater but in the fight we had at the end, it was torn a bit, and I was wearing a jersey, training pants and the pair of shoes that you saw a while ago.

I had been cutting my own hair over the years, so it wasn't cut very cleanly and I was using a walking stick and could barely walk, so I probably looked like a beggar and people would pass by but everyone would ignore me. At that time, I was telling myself, "I don't know where God is going to lead me, but I will continue to do my 5 % until the end." I wasn't sure I was in the vicinity, and I wasn't sure how to get exactly to the church so I decided to ask someone. First I asked a man. He said, "I don't know." Then there was a young woman and when she came around the corner, I called out to her, "Excuse me, I think that the headquarters of the HSA-UWC is somewhere in this neighborhood. Do you happen to know it?"

This is how I was looking with my walking stick. I could barely stand. Then she stopped and said, "I'm a member of that church," and she showed me a copy of the Holy Songs and I thought that this is really the person that God has sent to me. I told her what had happened, and when I was confined I didn't have any information about what may have happened to True Father. I thought it was possible because of his advanced age that he may have passed on to the spirit world, so I asked her, "Is True Father healthy?" She smiled and said, "Yes, he's in good health." I was so grateful to hear that.

She called a taxi and gave me some money. That is how finally I could make my way to the church. But I was in a situation where I couldn't go to the toilet by myself so I was taken to the hospital that day. The doctor who saw me diagnosed me with malnutrition and inflammation of the knees.

Most of the people who carry out this kind of abduction and confinement are the family members of our brothers and sisters. Unfortunately in Japan the church has a very bad reputation, and the families who have adult members in the church become so concerned. They go to the internet and check many things. They try to figure out what to do, and in most of the cases they come in contact with the Christian ministers who oppose our church. The family members, with the feeling of grasping at straws, receive counseling from these ministers, and they fill them with one-sided wrong information and make the family members take the wrong decisions. "Your child is risking his life with his faith. Are you willing to quit your job for the sake of your child? There is only one way to get your child out of that church and that is to put them in protection to convince them." That is the abduction and the confinement.

Whether or not they are successful in making the person leave, there is a large amount of money that is given from the parents to those people who carry out the abduction and the confinement. My parents paid the full amount, and I think they paid more than $100,000.00. This is a business that is going on. There are members who were convinced to leave, and there are lawyers who are working with these ministers who are opposed to our church, leftist lawyers. These leftist lawyers convince the former members to sue the church and they take the church to court and all that money goes to the lawyer.

It is very clear how these ministers and lawyers are operating. They're very good at criticizing the Unification Church. They would use a very small situation and make the Unification Church look like the embodiment of evil. Even now this is going on across the country. The government officials know what is going on but they're refusing to do anything about stopping these crimes of abduction and confinement. Opposing ministers, leftist lawyers and the mass media are all involved in this, and right now in Japan it is extremely difficult to solve this problem, and we can't do anything about it. Right now five members are being confined, but we cannot do anything about it.

In this kind of situation, after I was released, there were many things that surprised me. First, I got on the train for the first time in a long time, and I saw everyone sitting down with some kind of device in their hands and they were using them with their thumbs. I couldn't figure out what they were doing with their thumbs. Now I use one of those, too. I was very surprised by that in the beginning.

Another thing that surprised me was that we have True Children here with us today. I was really wonderfully and amazingly surprised to see what wonderful work the True Children are doing. We put so much faith in them now, they are wonderful. In Japan we have no way of dealing with this confinement and abduction. In Japan we have a very urgent providential responsibility but there is no way to deal with this. There are sisters here now in Korea who experienced the confinement but they have no one to talk to and share their experiences. So the people who have had this kind of experience have no place to go for counseling or talking, always keeping these experiences in themselves, always living in fear that they may be abducted again." Maybe today I will be abducted again!"

This is a democratic country, but that is the situation they're dealing with until now. But now the True Children are standing in the forefront and they're dealing with this issue, not just in Japan, but also in Korea and in America, and we're hand in hand now, in order to resolve this problem in Japan. We cannot allow the violation of the human rights of our members to continue. The fact that they are standing up like this is so wonderful. So as a representative of people who went through the confinement experience, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. God and True Parents are giving us this providence, I'm truly so grateful. As one person who has been a victim of that confinement, I want to fight with you to resolve this problem. That is my determination. Thank you very much.

Doug Burton, “The Night Ted Patrick Disciples Took Me for a Ride”

I was an American student preparing for graduate school in Munich, Germany when I decided to hang up my studies and join the Unification Church in October, 1975. Before joining the church I had been enjoying Oktoberfest in Munich. The weather was perfect, the girls were pretty and the beer was fabulous. True, joining an obscure little movement was an abrupt change of plans, especially a shock to my parents, who had bragged to friends and family about my scholarship from the German government. But to me, having grown weary of school after six years, it was time for adventure. No beer in the church, of course, but the weather was still pretty, as were the Unification sisters. I joined a traveling crusade of missionaries that set up shop in Paris a month later.

Mom and Dad were beyond shock. My mother, especially, was mortified. Having read scary stories about the Unification Church in the Dallas Morning News, she felt duty-bound to rescue me from the clutches of the earnest young lecturers and the pretty sisters who had captured my heart. Mom and my older sister hired an up-and-coming deprogrammer named Cynthia Slaughter, a blond, 20-something former debutante who had been in the church for about a year, before she was kidnapped and forcibly converted into the anti-cult movement. Mom had signed a contract worth several thousand dollars to get me out of the church and back onto a normal career path. Ms. Slaughter said she had been mentored by Mr. Ted Patrick, but she was new at the game -- you could tell by her swagger. I believe I was one of her first professional challenges.

Sis showed up unannounced at the door of our church center in Paris one evening and invited me to go with her for coffee. In a few moments three men forced me into a car and drove to a seedy hotel downtown. During the first 48 hours Cynthia and the team did all they could to break me down with sleep deprivation and very little food. (To be denied victuals in the food capital of the world was particularly uncouth.) The deprogramming team included a couple of long-haired young political leftists and a chain-smoking Catholic priest she had recruited to help her out. Cynthia and the young Marxists took turns ridiculing and insulting me, calling me "brainwashed Zombie, robot, automaton, tool of Satan, fool, simpleton, capitalist tool, cultist, lemming, blind follower," and more. Sis did her part by telling me over and over again that my behavior was killing Mom. (My private thought at the time was that their hysteria was pushing Mom to the brink of apoplexy.) They would ask me to explain my beliefs and as soon as I would attempt an explanation they would shower me in ridicule.

As I was rather exhausted after a full day of fundraising on the first day, I decided not to resist but to ask questions of my interlocutors then sit back and respectfully listen. It soon surfaced that the Marxists were militant atheists and hated all religion. The priest had to argue with them a little here, and he smoked all the more to make his points. Cynthia apparently subscribed to some sort of fundamentalist Christian theology, and she took umbrage at their atheistic bromides, but then again, she didn't fully agree with what the Catholic Church was doing. It was rather easy to prod them into arguing with each other, and this went on for about an hour before Sis noticed that they were neglecting me and called a halt to the debate within the deprogramming circle. It was obvious to me that they couldn't succeed at the task at hand because they had no unity, no principled hierarchy, no honored central figure, no overriding sense of purpose, no sense of subject-object relationships. Although I was new to the church, I felt morally superior to them. I could have been a better deprogrammer myself, I thought. In fact, I already had reservations about the church. I could have deprogrammed myself if they had shown me a little courtesy, but noooooooo. They had to play hardball. Folks back in West Texas would say, "They were just plain ignorant."

After five days of haranguing by Cynthia and her scruffy colleagues, I was able to convince them that I was thoroughly cleansed of my new-religionist beliefs. Mom and Sis shipped me off to stay with family friends in the South of France for six weeks where I read books about thought reform and psychological coercion. I didn't resist the rehabilitation. For me it was a vacation from fundraising in the cold in front of Paris Metro stations. The books on brainwashing techniques were fairly interesting, but they didn't break my faith. The books didn't persuade me that the educational methods of our church were any more manipulative than the fire-and-brimstone sermons I had listened to for years at the First Baptist Church in Midland, Texas. Those sermons used to scare my pants off.

After six weeks, I announced to my hosts that I wanted to return to the church, and they agreed to let me go. No, they didn't agree with my church, but they were proud and patriotic Texans who reckoned that I had as much right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as anyone else. They gave me a hundred dollars and a train ticket back to Paris, where more adventures, and an MFT, were waiting. 

Louise Schmidt Perlowitz, “Kidnapped for Christmas: A Deprogramming Testimony”

The following is a testimony by Louise Schmidt Perlowitz, a Pennysylvania resident who joined the Unification Church in 1971 and who was kidnapped for deprogramming during the holiday season of 1975. She was Blessed in marriage to Jeff Perlowitz in 1982 and has two children, Lana, 23, and Randall, 19. Louise works in the legal department at HSA-UWC (Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity) USA Headquarters and is looking to celebrating this year's Christmas with her husband and children.

In December of 1975, my parents had called me asking me to come to visit them and I thought it would be nice to spend Christmas with them. I was working at East Garden and was given permission to go home and visit my family. What I hadn’t realized was that Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where they were living, was a hotbed of anti-cult and deprogramming activity. My mother picked me up at the airport and drove me to my parents’ home. She told me we were going in the front door, which I thought was strange, since we always used the back door. When we entered the living room there were four strange people sitting in the living room with my dad. This was really weird, since this was my first day home, and my parents would not usually have invited people over to visit right away. Two or three of the male visitors were large and intimidating. One of the men said in an ominous voice, “Do you know why we are here?” Then I realized who they were. My immediate reaction was mentally to withdraw from what was going on and to try to figure out what to do. Since I was not a great speaker or a theologian, I did not think I could talk my way out of the situation. My decision was to see what they said, play along a little bit, and try to escape when the opportunity came. Also, I did not have a lot of time to waste, since I really wanted to be back in the Unification Church environment by God’s Day, January 1st, and start the new year in God’s camp. The visitors presented their arguments, and I responded as well as I could, stating my views, but they were very persistent. I gradually stopped arguing and started smiling. It was getting along toward dinnertime, and my mother had prepared both a large ham and a turkey for dinner. I thought the stress must be getting to my mother, because she would never have made such a huge, expensive dinner under normal circumstances. I thought I should get out of this deprogramming situation quickly for her sake as well. After dinner the deprogramming continued. When it came time to break for the night, the deprogrammers camped out in the house, and I spent the night in a bedroom with my mother. The next morning, since I had pretty much stopped arguing and just smiled, they thought I was deprogrammed. It was decided that I would be taken to a halfway house in Ohio. A deprogrammer drove me to the home of a family who would look after me as I transitioned back into “society.” This was Christmas Eve. The family treated me well, and even found a Christmas gift to give me on Christmas Day. However, I felt that I faced a very bleak existence unless I could get back to the church. The day after Christmas, the family decided that I needed a chance to go shopping, since I was coming out of what they thought was a very restricted environment of the church. The whole family, the father, mother, and teenage son and daughter, drove me to the airport where I cashed in my return airline ticket. They allowed me to keep the money. They then drove me to a mall where we would go shopping. It seems that everyone had to use the restroom, so we went first to the passageway where the restrooms were located. I came out of the restroom first and no one from that family was there standing guard, so I looked for an escape route. There was a mall exit down the passageway, so I raced out the exit and looked to see where I could hide. There was a movie theater across a four-lane highway, so I quickly but carefully crossed the highway, went into the movie theater, bought a ticket (I had money from my airline ticket) and went into the auditorium to hide. The movie hadn’t started yet, so I went down to the front row of seats, near an exit door, and crouched down to hide in case someone came in the movie theater looking for me. The movie started, but after about a half hour, I got restless and went to a pay phone to call Belvedere to see if someone could rescue me. An Ohio Church brother called me and suggested that I take a taxi and rent a motel room, then call him to give him the address of the motel. I did that and then called him. I asked how I would recognize that he was a church member, and he said he would whistle “The Lord into His Garden Comes.” The church brother rescued me, and I was able to take a bus back to East Garden. I made it back before God’s Day, which was a real blessing. I felt I had been out in the cold and darkness and very much alone. Now I was back in the light and warmth. I was welcomed back at East Garden by the True Children and the staff. My parents came to visit me a couple of years later and then came to New York City when I was blessed in 1982 to my husband, Jeff Perlowitz. I did not feel free to visit them until years later when my mother became ill.

Karen Mischke-Rogers, “Eight Days that Shook My World”

The spring weather of 1977 in Washington, DC, was beautiful on the Sunday afternoon I visited my cousin in nearby Gaithersburg, Maryland. My cousin and her husband had invited me to go to the National Zoo. I had joined the Unification Church three years earlier, and I knew my mother was not comfortable with my decision to join the church, I thought this visit would bring me closer to my mom, and my extended family. My cousin asked if I was tired after we had walked around a while, and I answered: "No, I feel great." The fact was, at 26 years old, I felt like I was in top physical shape. Later, after some refreshments at their home and a little small talk, my cousin's husband told me to go wait for him in the carport while he got his keys to drive me home. As I went out the door, I was grabbed in a flash by two strong men and pushed into a car that whisked me away to another reality -- that of being kidnapped into a "deprogramming" plan hatched by my mother, aunt, and cousins. Unbeknownst to me, my family had hired a group of anti-cult kidnappers connected to Mr. Ted Patrick, who was convicted and imprisoned for kidnappings sometime later.

I screamed, but one of the strong men threatened me, so I quieted down and pondered what to do next. My mother was in the front seat and did not turn to face me. The two men holding my arms back were Mom's mental hospital coworkers. I trusted that somehow my mother would not let the "deprogrammers" hurt me. I was both comforted by her presence and conversely sick to my stomach to be a kidnap victim. Across Virginia into North Carolina we drove, until we reached the destination, a motel somewhere on the highway near the airport of Raleigh, NC.

I spent a sleepless night in this motel room with my mother. Several men who slept on the floor to block me in case I tried to get out of bed to escape covered the floor of my room. In order to reach the door, I would have had to step on one of them. My eight-day ordeal had begun.

The next morning I met my so-called "deprogrammer", a girl who had spent time in a new religious movement called the Children of God. Her job was to psychologically "break me" so that I could get free from a supposedly awful religious group. This young woman did not realize that psychology had been my major in university, and that I was looking forward to finding out how much she knew about the church. She gave me her best -- undocumented rumors and hateful rhetoric against the Reverend Moon -- all of which I had heard several times during my three years as a church member. I could see they had nothing new, just hearsay, pejoratives, put-downs, and lies -- repeated often enough through the media that some people would believe them.

Later, they brought in a young man and a young woman, both former Unification Church members who had joined at the same time I did in Raleigh. I wondered why they couldn't look me straight in the eye while talking to me. Were they hiding something embarrassing? While they were telling me about how the "treatment" goes, I sensed there was a weird element they didn't want to mention explicitly. They were talking about the last stage of the program, when I would be taken to a "retreat" at a camp in the mountains of Vermont. There I would spend 24 hours with a member of the opposite sex until the deprogramming was "finished." Then it hit me that the final treatment was to lose one's virginity, thereby insuring that the member would not go back to the church, since sexual purity was the most important thing to us. The idea was that the person would be too ashamed. Then and there, I decided to make a plan to escape the fate that had overtaken my brother and sister. I pitied them.

At this time in our church history there were so many kidnappings that church leaders had given us advice about how to handle ourselves, just in case. I had been given the advice that I should go along with the captors and create a false recantation. With any luck, they would let me go, and I could then return to the church unharmed. It was a tough decision: I hated lying, and I was proud of the church. I truly wanted my family to understand how great I felt about the Divine Principle, and how beautiful and inspiring the church was. But seeing the determination of these people, I knew they would stop at nothing. I said a prayer and told God that what I was about to say to my captors was not my true heart. I then told my keepers, "Yes, I need to think about all the things I have heard."

The deprogrammers appeared to be relieved, because previously I had been so unmovable. They required me to sign a document to prove that their "treatment" had worked, so that they could get paid. This galled me the most. Mom was a widow and certainly not wealthy. She contacted the deprogrammers out of love and concern, and it made me sick to my stomach to see my mother's hard-earned money used this way. Worse, the deprogrammers were making a profit by degrading people. The female deprogrammer even laughed at how much money she was making, and bragged of having had to hire an accountant to take care of it all.

The deprogrammers made plans to take me to the retreat in Vermont by car. "Yeah, right!" I thought. Again, my mother was in the front seat. We drove for hours, and I expected to have chances to escape. When I heard Abba's song, "Dancing Queen," on the car radio as we stopped for gas in Silver Spring, Maryland, I knew it was my cue to make my escape. I told the captors I was going to the restroom and got out of the car. Surprisingly, I was not accompanied. Then, I went to get a drink of water inside the garage at the fountain. Once inside the garage, two men working there, one an African American and the other a Hispanic gentleman pulled down the two garage doors separating me from my captors. I then alerted the gas station manager that the people waiting for me were not my friends and that they had kidnapped me, and requested he call the police. "I'm 26 years old," I said. As long as you are in my station you don't have to go with anyone you don't want tor he said as he dialed the police.

By this time, the kidnap party was showing signs of panic that I was loose. But the policeman who showed up in the squad car said that as far as he was concerned it was a family matter. I requested that he ask his superior to let me make a statement at the police station, and he did. Then, at the police station, the superior officer said it was an FBI case as I had been transported across state lines. The police let me call my church elder who agreed to pick me up right away.

Meanwhile, the deprogrammers hadn't given up. They watched the police station from their car, hoping to get another chance to grab me, but they were out of luck. David Hose, another Unificationist, drove up and whisked me away to a lawyer's office where I gave a sworn statement. Legal proceedings were started but I balked when I found out that my mother more likely would be tried for kidnapping instead of the deprogrammers, since she was present the whole time. I declined to prosecute my mother. After all, she was the unsuspecting victim. These people had taken her money under false pretenses that I, her 26-year-old child, had been in danger. I was hidden for a while in safe houses provided by members in the area. When True Father came to town, I was presented to him, along with my story and he shook my hand. I then decided to change locations and church responsibilities to avoid recapture. I knew the deprogrammers were still under contract, and Mom had a written guarantee on their services.

I felt sorry for my mother, but did not talk to her again for two years. When I did call, it was to let her know that True Father had engaged me to the man of my dreams, David Rogers, on May 13, 1979. David and I visited her together, by which time she had learned that David's father had met Reverend Moon in person at a science conference and had no worries at all about the Unification Church. My husband turned out to be the son she never had, as I am the only child. The subject of the kidnapping was so painful that we buried it and got on with our lives. She attended our historic wedding in Madison Square Garden, in New York City on July 1, 1982, and later visited us in Alaska for several summers afterwards. She was close by for the birth of three out of four grandchildren and enjoyed every minute of being a grandmother. When she fell ill in 2001, our family went back to North Carolina to take care of her until she passed in 2003, the week before her first grandchild was blessed in marriage.

I have never given this testimony publicly because I felt I knew my mother kidnapped me out of love, and out of the misplaced fear that I was somehow in danger. I was shocked to find out kidnapping and deprogrammings are still going on in Japan. I only give my testimony to tell people that this practice of kidnapping - detaining individuals, and coercing them to recant their religious beliefs -- is illegal, immoral and against a person's human rights. 

Brian Sabourin, “Deprogramming from the Unification Church”

I had been fundraising for about one week when my mother called the center in Boston, telling me my father was having heart problems and asked me if I couldn't come home that weekend to care for the farm so that they could get away for a while. I immediately said "Yes," and promised to take a late bus home on Friday. After I had hung up, Antony, my center director came to me and asked me if I thought my parents were being honest with me, and if they could possibly have other plans for me besides those mentioned. I answered him that my parents were not the kind of people to act like that; that they would not lie to me and join the deprogrammers without first having a heart-to-heart talk with me. Furthermore, I told him that I had already warned them about these people, and said not to get involved without talking to me first. I believed my mother was being honest. So, it was considered safe for me to go home.

When Friday, July 4th (1975) came around I was again out fundraising, feeling and doing better than I ever had. I made $125.00 in about three hours' time. I was feeling great. At 4:30 I came back to the center and packed up my things. Everybody said goodbye to me and I was brought to the bus terminal by Christina, the girl who first introduced me to the church. She told me that she was very worried about me, and that everyone else was also. I reassured her of my parents' "good heart" and left to catch my bus, but I missed it by 30 seconds. I waited around until the 7:00 bus left Boston for Middleburry. That bus I caught, and later arrived at my front door around 1:30 in the morning. I quickly ran up the driveway and entered the front door. I was shocked to see everybody still up, waiting for me. I gave my mother a big hug and kiss and told them that they shouldn't have waited up for me. About then I noticed how worried and uneasy they all were. My father told me to sit down and that he wanted to talk with me. "Couldn't that wait until morning?" I asked. "I'm terribly tired."

"No, as a matter of fact, it can't," he said. So I sat down and started to explain what I had been doing for the last three months. But they could not understand me, or wouldn't understand. They kept interrupting me, saying that I didn't love them anymore, and that I was brainwashed. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. I kept trying to explain myself to them, that I was not brainwashed and that I truly did love and care for them, indeed more than I ever had. But they would not believe me. This went on for about 75 minutes, until they were so upset and miserable that I felt as if I had to do something drastic in order to prove myself to them. I told them what had happened to Ann Devine and they said they knew about it. Hearing that, I became suspicious of them and began to get worried. I told them about the deprogramming sessions, and I told them I would be glad to talk with one of these people if that was what they wanted, and if they felt it would help answer their questions and make them feel better. They said they would appreciate that, if I didn't mind. I told them that I expected to be treated fairly and that the only purpose of it would be to resolve that questions which they had. I warned them about how deprogrammers had handled Unification Church members before. But, they said they would make sure I was treated fairly.

At that moment my mother called to some people to come from a nearby room, who up to this time, I had been unaware of. Suddenly my old wrestling and football coach, two of my uncles, and a close friend from school came in through the door and stood around me. Needless to say, I felt stupid. I had been tricked. They had planned to abduct me all along. I kept asking questions about what their plans were, and they said everything would be fair and that if I wanted to return after it was over, I could. So, odds being what they were, I . . .

It was about 3:00 in the morning. I got in my uncle's car, with my father and uncles sitting on either side of me, and was driven to an old hunting cabin in New Hampshire. I couldn't sleep during the car ride; I was too nervous and scared. Many times during the trip I felt sick to my stomach and nauseous, nearly passing out.

We got to the house at about 6:00 in the morning. I immediately recognized my future deprogrammers, Mr. George Swope and Carl Waranowski. I had seen them during a meeting at Durham, New Hampshire where CARP's membership as a qualified student organization was being re-considered.

They told me to get out of the car, and then escorted me into the little cabin. I walked around inside the cabin while the deprogrammers talked with my parents and relatives on the outside. After a while everybody came inside. Mrs. Swope and few other people had just arrived. My mother, father and uncles came over to me, saying that, "We're all behind you, Brian," and "We know you can do it . . ."

My mother then hugged me, and patted me on the head saying, "All these people have taken their holiday off just to help you, Brian. Now just listen to what they have to say. . ." She was treating me like a child. She treated me as a mother would treat her mentally sick son! I asked her if she was o.k. and told her that I already knew what these people were going to say, and if they would only let me, I could explain everything. She started crying then. I embraced her and tried to console her, saying that I had never thought out any decision as much as I had my decision to join the Unification Church. I told her that I loved being a member and that I had full use of my mind and free will. "Isn't that evident?" I asked. But she only cried more. Then I told her that I would be alright and that if everything went like they said it would, we would all learn something. My mother then turned and walked out the door to talk with the people outside.

My father then came up to me, shaking my hand and patting me on the back, saying, "You can see how worried and upset your mother and I are over you Brian, so just listen to these people, they're here to help you." I again said that I was fine and didn't need help from anyone. I told him that I had never been happier doing what I was doing, and that I could clear the whole problem up if they would only listen to me and give me the time to explain myself. My father shook his head and said, "Brian, I know you can pull yourself out of the problem you've gotten yourself into, and that is what these people are here for, to help you." I got the distinct feeling that he and everybody else there regarded me as one would a person with a drug addition. Shortly after this, he left too and my brother and friend Ray came into the room with me. I talked with them until the deprogrammers came into the room.

Then, at 6:30, they started in on me. Immediately they started yelling at me. Calling me a liar, telling me that I hated my parents and would even kill them if Moon told me to. They said that I should be ashamed of myself for causing them this worry!! I started to say that it was they who had caused my parents' confusion and not . . .

It wasn't long before I realized that this wasn't going to be anything like the "open-minded" and "fair" meeting which I had been told it would be. But, I didn't want to give up. I sincerely believed that I could eventually break through to these people and show them the ridiculousness of their accusations. So, I decided to be patient and understanding and talk only when spoken to, and explain myself when I thought they would be genuinely interested in listening.

Needless to say, they never changed. I started to get intense headache, but there was nothing to take for it. I felt sick to my stomach, exhausted, and scared. I hadn't eaten since 3:00 p.m. on Friday. After about 4 hours of this stuff, I got up out of my chair to sit in a more comfortable chair behind me. As soon as I moved, they all jumped up out of their chairs and started towards me. When they saw that I was only changing chairs, they sat back down again, and resumed their "therapy".

This continued until around noon when lunch was brought in for us. They said they were going to feed me "just like the 'cult" fed me," and gave me a single hot dog and a tables spoonful of baked beans. I sad down to eat, my hands were shaking, and I still felt sick and my headache was getting increasingly worse. I closed my eyes to pray a prayer of blessing for the meal, when suddenly Carl pushed me backwards in my chair, saying, "You ain't going to pray to Moon anymore!" I said, "What? I was only going to say grace before I eat!" But he continued to rave on about it, calling me a zombie-liar and a brainwashed pimp. I felt really sick by this time but I forced myself to eat what food they gave me.

My parents came back and gave me those sort of "pseudo-comforting" statements and detached embraces. They were crying and looked miserable. At that point I vowed to God that I would make it through this mess and help them to understand where they were wrong and regain their trust. I told them I was all right and not to worry because everything was going to be all right.

They left shortly after they came and the deprogrammers continued their barrage with renewed vigor. But I wasn't going to sit back and take it anymore. I sat up straight by the table and threw it right back at them. It wasn't long before I realized that this was useless, and decided to continue in the way I had before.

Many things happened that day. I didn't think I would make it through it without vomiting or passing out. They continued this until 3:00 a.m. the next morning when, seeing that I wasn't going to break down right off, they said I could go to bed. I undressed and got in my bed, when I bent down to pray. Carl quickly pushed me over, shouting, "I told you before! You ain't going to pray to Moon no more!"

They woke me the next morning at about 6:30. I got up and ate some cereal for breakfast while they began my "deprogramming" again. Even though the sleep was short, I felt a little better. But my head still ached, I felt weak, and had an empty feeling in my stomach.

After breakfast, Mr. Swope and Carl started in again. Their pattern and presentation were the same as the previous day. I knew I could explain and clarify all of the accusations which they were making if they would only give me the chance. But they never intended to. By this time I realized that the entire purpose of these sessions was to break the victim down, and in my opinion, forcibly "brainwash" him into believing that the Unification Church and Rev. Moon are evil and corrupt, and everything which he had believed in was wrong, contrived for the purpose of trapping people like myself. They preached their version of the Bible at me constantly, inserting Rev. Moon's name into all of the most despicable passages. I simply couldn't believe that a Christian minister and professional psychologist like Mr. Swope could use his knowledge in such a fashion on people like myself.

The second day continued much like the first day had, with my parents making infrequent visits at the request of the deprogrammers. Yet it was fortunate for them that they only visited me this much, because whenever they came, it only proved to be miserable for them. For example, on the second day when my mother and father came, my mother started a conversation with me. She said, "Brian, can't you see how wrong you were to join such a movement at this? Can't you see how Moon is just brainwashing you kids?" When I said, "no," she started crying and crying.

I simply didn't know what to do! Comforting them by saying everything was going to be all right was an outright lie. Nothing was going to be all right as long as I was prevented from explaining myself to them, and as long as they believed that I was brainwashed it was hopeless. I thought a lot about trying to escape and explaining everything later when we all could be more calm and reasonable. But I knew the deprogrammers would never leave them alone, and would easily convince them to try more drastic measures for getting me out. Furthermore, I couldn't stand to see them suffering like they were. I knew that I would hurt them very deeply if I escaped. So. . . I decided to stick it out. I wouldn't try to escape, not even if they gave me an easy opportunity. I planned to outlast them. I would listen to them and listen to them until they ran out of energy and breath, then I would explain myself and show them the ridiculousness of their actions.

Well, it didn't work. . . They took time out, exchanging themselves with other loudmouths while I was always there, catching it.

As time went on, I became weaker and weaker. My headache was constantly with me, night and day. I would frequently feel so much like vomiting that I would visually measure the distance to the sink and estimate how quickly I could make it there, hoping that the deprogrammers wouldn't misinterpret my intentions and stop me mid-way.

The second day ended like the first, except an hour earlier. I got to bed at 2:00 a.m. and was woken about 7:00 a.m. the next morning. The third day was virtually similar to the second and first days. Yet I was quickly becoming weaker. By this time I started to pretend to agree with them on certain points to defray some of their attacks. Yet this proved to be my undoing later when they discovered this and came down on me even harder.

I hadn't changed my clothes or brushed my teeth or anything since they got me on Friday. I felt and looked wretched by this time. Yet this was all part of their game. By the end of the third day I know that I was hopeless to think of ever reasoning with these people, or with my parents as long as these people were around to influence them. But I still would not try to escape, because of the effects which I believed this would have on my parents, even though I had some good opportunities.

The fourth day was the same as the rest, except for the change in me. I was really sick. . . I couldn't think straight if I had to by this time. I was totally caught up in a mesh of conflicting loyalties -- between my parents and the church -- and didn't know where to turn. I still believed and wanted to belong to the church at this point, but I no longer could remember or explain my reasons why. As the deprogramming continued, my mind discontinued. I started to become really scared of what was happening to me. I even started to feel brainwashed, if you can imagine what that feels like. So when the fifth day rolled around, I knew my time was limited. They were allowing me to get more sleep by now, around five to six hours, but it was nowhere near enough. I had started to fall asleep during the sessions by the third day, and by the fifth day, it was more than a struggle to stay awake. Whenever I would start to drop off they would kick me to wake me up. Once, I pretended to be asleep to see how far they would go in order to try and revive me. When the kicking didn't bring a response, the slaps did -- I opened my eyes . . .

One particular event of the fifth day still stays with me. Mr. Swope was reading the Bible and telling me to read various sections, which he picked out. I was really becoming frustrated by his demeaning remarks and suddenly started to sarcastically read the passages in just the way he had been sarcastically reading from my Divine Principle book. I had no more that uttered two words when Rev. Swope catapulted out of his chair, grabbing me by the neck and hair and violently shook me shouting, "I'll teach you to take the Lord's name in vain, you little bastard!" while Carl reiterated and punched me both in the back and in the back of my head. This incident startle me, but I was not hurt. Actually, I welcomed the change from the boredom.

The fifth day ended and the sixth day came. As soon as I got up, I knew I wasn't going to make it through the day without having an emotional breakdown. While eating breakfast I remembered back to my first day, when I had said to my deprogrammers, "you aren't going to be satisfied until you have me grovelling on the floor, are you?" to which Carl said, "Well, that would be a good start."

That day, these insults seemed to strike right at my heart. The tension built up, my confusion and desperation finally climaxed, and I burst out into a fit of tears. I couldn't stand it anymore. Whenever they made an accusation I would shake my head and agree with them, while in my heart I knew they were wrong. They accused me of "faking" my breakdown and pressed me again and again with their accusations. Each time now I would agree with them, I was so confused. . . I felt as if, well, maybe I had been brainwashed, maybe I was wrong. So I even started to participate in their game. I came to help them, and did whatever they said, and tried my darnedest to see everything the way they did because I really began to believe that I had been brainwashed and these were the only people who could help me.

From that day on, I outwardly began to sing their tune while inwardly feeling myself to be a hypocrite, believing this dichotomy to be due to the Unification church's unscrupulous brainwashing of me.

They kept me in that cabin for 12 days before letting me out. Every day I would break down like I had on the 6th day and they would treat me the same way each time. They treated me better as I proved to sing their tune better. Each night for the next week, I would be brought back to the cabin to sleep, and re-hash all of the material the next day. I remember what it felt like going into the cabin each night. When we drove back to it after the evening dinner, now held at the Swope's house, all of the scenes of my deprogramming would flash back into my head. I would start to feel sick again, and my head would begin to ache. So great was my dread of that place that I would feel stuck rigid in my car seat. When we arrived, it took all I had to force myself out of the car. I would then run to the door, waiting to get in, fighting off my tears, fear, and the miserable, wretched dread which I had for that place.

I was at the Swopes' house for about two weeks and then I was driven all over the Northeast to visit other ex-members. During this time I started to feel better. I felt I was thinking more clearly now since I was "deprogrammed." Yet I still had some imperfections, which they all did their best to correct in me.

After about a month of this I was brought home. It felt good to be back and away from these people, but I in no way felt good. I was constantly depressed and miserable. Yet I tried my best not to let anyone know, partly because I was afraid of a barrage of questions and strong talk, which I had had plenty of, and also because I thought my psychological condition was due to the brainwashing I received from the Unification Church. I continued in this schitzophrenic way from about two months after I was home, until my own depression, desperation, mental confusion, and physical sickness forced me to start all over again. I decided to force myself into researching everything. Once I started this I began a daily recuperation to my previously healthy self. I started to feel much better.

Today I have written two papers as a result of the research, and feel pretty good again. I know clearly who to believe in now, and believe me, it's not the deprogrammers!