Miwa Suzuki -
More than two decades after Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo cult plunged Tokyo into terror by releasing a nerve agent on rush-hour subway trains, its spinoffs continue to attract new followers.
Cult head Shoko Asahara is on death row, along with 12 of his disciples, for crimes including the subway attack, which killed 13 people and injured thousands.
He was arrested in 1995 in the wake of the sarin attack, but the Aum cult survived the crackdown, renaming itself Aleph and drawing new recruits into its fold.
Aleph officially renounced ties to Asahara in 2000, but the doomsday guru retains significant influence, according to Japan’s Public Security Intelligence Agency.
“It (Aleph) is a group that firmly instructs its followers to see Asahara as the supreme being,” an agency investigator said.
Aleph and other splinter groups, which deny links to Asahara, have 1,650 members in Japan and hundreds more in Russia, according to the Public Security Intelligence Agency.
It says the groups attract around 100 new followers annually via yoga classes, fortune-telling and other activities.
“We are worried there is an increasing number of children who have been inculcated by the Aum since they were very young,” the investigator said.
Asahara and his wife Tomoko had four daughters and two sons, and most of the family remains within the cult.
One daughter who left in 2006, aged 16, has described horrifying ordeals during her childhood, including being forced to eat food with ceramic shards in it.
In early March, on Asahara’s 63rd birthday, investigators were keeping their usual close eye on the headquarters of an Aum splinter group in a quiet Tokyo residential area.
“We are not marking the day in any way,” said Akitoshi Hirosue, deputy head of the Hikarinowa (The Circle of Rainbow Light) group.
“We actually think Asahara should be executed,” he said.
Hikarinowa split from Aleph in 2007 under the leadership of flamboyant former Aum spokesman Fumihiro Joyu, and now has around 100-150 members.
“As long as the death penalty is not implemented against him, Asahara is the ‘saviour exempt from execution’ and helps Aleph win more followers,” Joyu said.
Taro Takimoto, a lawyer who has helped relatives of cultists for decades, supports capital punishment for Asahara but not the 12 other members on death row, who he says only acted as “limbs” of the guru.
He fears the 12 members will “become martyrs” if executed, only boosting cult recruitment. — AFP
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