Tokyo / Vienna, Nov 14, 2014 (FOREF)
Toru Goto, who was kidnapped and held in confinement for over 12 years by professional faith breakers has just won a tremendous victory in the Tokyo High-Court. The amount of dameges is 22,000,000 yen (aproximately USD 220,000). Congratulations to Mr. Goto and to the HRWF team who have been working during the last 3 years to achieve justice for Mr. Toru Goto.
The battle is not over yet, but this victory definitely marks a turning point in favor of justice and religious freedom in Japan, where over the last 45 years more than 4300 people have been kidnapped for the purpose of breaking their faith. Over 80 percent of the victims were women. So far the police and the judiciary regarded this as a "family matter" and have turned a blind eye to these unspeakable crimes & injustice.
BACKGROUND: The turning point came, when Dr. Aaron Rhodes (now president of FOREF) and the team of HRWF (Human Rights Without Frontiers) filed an independent report (of over 100 pages) on the Goto story and other similar cases. The HRWF report was widely published and submitted to the US State Department and the UN in Geneva.
Recently the UN Human Rights Committee as well as the US State Department have rebuked the Japanese government for ignoring those grave violation of human rights in their own country, citing the Goto case and the HRWF report on several occasions.
Hundreds of victims of the Japanese Victims Association have now new hope that also they may receive justice in near future and that the perpetrators will receive their due punishment, so that they will never repeat their evil crimes.
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