Attorney Kito’s Serious “Honkaku” Warning Tweets as the Unification Church Issue Surfaced

TV production sites are scratching their heads.

The former Unification Church issue was sparked after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe death due to shooting. Lawyer Masaki Kito, who has been at the vanguard of the movement to pursue the issue, has given a warning to Fuji Television’s “Honto ni Aru Horror Story: Summer Special Edition 2022,” which was broadcast on August 20.

On Twitter, Mr. Kito wrote:

I want you to quit airing this kind of program. I don’t understand why you still continue to do it. It is only used for psychic business. Television should report based on facts.

he posted. Religious leaders and psychics appeared in the studio for this program. He explained about the ghosts that appeared in the re-enactment drama and appealed that if psychic phenomena occur, placing herizu salt on the doorway can expel the spirits, which seemed to justify the expulsion of spirits.

In a tweet from another day, Kito wrote

This is really troubling. If it is a fictional/nonscientific story, it should be thoroughly investigated, and the method of presenting the guru of a religious corporation as a “psychic researcher” or “religious person” is misleading and may violate broadcasting ethics.

In a series of problems with the former Unification Church, the way it solicited believers were

“The spirits of our ancestors are angry.”
“There are bad spirits in the church.”

The former Unification Church has adopted a method of inciting anxiety among its followers by saying, “The spirits of our ancestors are angry,” or “There are bad spirits attached to us. The mother of Tetsuya Yamagami, the suspect in the attack on former Prime Minister Abe, is said to have joined the former Unification Church because she was cleverly provoked to feel uneasy about her family.

Against this backdrop, Kito’s Twitter account may have sounded an unusual alarm, but it is the TV production industry that is on the spot in the face of such an alarm.

In general, psychics provide commentary on psychic programs. Until now, this has not been a problem at all, but with the furore caused by the former Unification Church, the tide has completely turned. We have to be extremely careful from now on.

The former Unification Church issue is being reported daily on the Internet, and this treatment of the issue is a cause for concern.

“Why did they allow him to appear now?”
“Does Fuji understand the gravity of the situation?”

Mr. Kito is not against all psychic programs, but he believes that they should refrain from highlighting the “special power” of psychics.

A TV station official said, “It will be difficult to introduce the life story of a self-proclaimed psychic or to broadcast scenes of exorcisms. The exorcism scenes were well received by viewers, but it may be necessary to add a note at the end of the program saying, ‘This story contains fictional content.'”

he says.

Even on platforms such as Google, information about unsettling phenomena, conspiracy theories, and potential scams is strictly limited. Ghost stories are a summer tradition, but they also run the risk of being used for psychic sales.

The former Unification Church issue seems to have presented TV stations with a new conundrum.