Japan's subway sarin attack doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo still a threat, security official warns

Some 25 years after the Aum Shinrikyo cult released sarin nerve gas on subway trains in Tokyo, the head of the Japanese agency charged with monitoring its activities has warned that loyal followers of founder Shoko Asahara remain a threat.

Ayuko Watanabe, director of the Public Security Intelligence Agency unit devoted to tracking the cult's members and periodically searching its facilities, said on Friday that three splinter groups have emerged from the original cult are actively recruiting new members, most of whom are young and unaware of Aum's history. These groups are simultaneously building up millions of dollars worth of cash reserves, she said.

"It has been a quarter of a century since the terrorist attacks on Tokyo, but Aum Shinrikyo is not history yet," Watanabe warned in a press conference on Friday. "It still exists and it remains a persistent problem."

Shoko Asahara, the half-blind yoga teacher who founded the cult in 1984, was hanged in July 2018 " five years after he had been found guilty of ordering 1995's subway sarin attack, which killed 14 people and injured 5,800 other commuters, and 13 other crimes.

Shoko Asahara, leader of the doomsday Aum Shinrikyo cult, pictured in 1990. Photo: AFP

Those additional counts included an earlier sarin attack that killed eight people and the abduction and murder of a lawyer who had been representing parents attempting to get their children out of the cult. As well as killing the lawyer, Asahara's disciples murdered his wife and their 1-year-old son. A further 12 of his most senior acolytes were also hanged on the same day.

Aum Shinrikyo was forcibly disbanded by the Japanese authorities, but Asahara's followers formed a new religious group, called Aleph, that continued his teachings. Two splinter groups have since been set up: the "Circle of Rainbow Light" in 2007 and a religion that the country's intelligence agency refers to as the Group led by Yamada, in January 2015.

The groups are united, however, by their continuing adherence to Asahara's teachings, Watanabe said.

"Aleph shows no signs of changing its beliefs or nature," she said. "The group instructs its followers to write in their wills that their families are prevented from collecting their bodies after their death. It hides its name and uses social media and events to recruit new followers."

An undated copy of a photo belonging to a Aum member shows cult leader Shoko Asahara with his wife, daughter and an inner group of disciples. Photo: AP

According to the agency, Aum Shinrikyo had more than 11,400 followers in Japan with branches in the United States, Russia, Germany and Sri Lanka. Membership fell to around 1,000 immediately after the Tokyo sarin attack but has been gradually increasing since then. At present, its spin-off groups are thought to have around 1,650 followers living at 31 facilities across Japan.

Meanwhile, assets held by groups associated with the cult have increased exponentially, from the 4 million yen (US$37,370) in savings that Aleph was estimated to have build up in 2000 to the nearly 12.9 billion yen (US$120.5 million) in cash assets that the various groups are thought to control today.

The groups make money by having followers purchase religious study books and paraphernalia, as well as paying to undergo ceremonies to increase their spiritual powers. These ceremonies typically require lengthy fasting, electric shock treatments and purchasing water that was "blessed" by Asahara before his arrest, Watanabe said.

While Aum and the other groups have been declared terrorist organisations in the US and are prohibited from operating, Watanabe said the Japanese government had taken a decision to permit the splinter groups to continue as it was the most effective way of monitoring their activities. That approach has been successful, she said, as there have been no further threats to the well-being of the general public.

She admitted, however, that the groups have been caught breaking the law, including by falsifying applications for welfare payments.

The biggest concern for the authorities, said Watanabe, is that young people who know little about the cult are being talked into joining " with officials of the agency obtaining footage of known cult members approaching people in libraries and in the street and striking up conversations.

"We know that they invite people to go to yoga workshops or 'spiritual' meetings and then they start explaining about Asahara's teachings without mentioning his name or Aum Shinrikyo," she said. "And then they say that the sarin attacks were a conspiracy within the government and the media. And when they have built up a solid connection, they reveal who they really are and welcome these people into the group."

Watanabe estimates that as many as 100 people are joining the groups every year.

"After 25 years, most people think that Aum is part of history," she said. "It's not. People have forgotten and that's what makes me most afraid."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.