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On 8 July 2022, Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister of Japan and a serving member of the Japanese House of Representatives, was shot to death while speaking at a political event outside Yamato-Saidaiji Station in Nara City, Nara Prefecture. Abe was delivering a campaign speech for a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) candidate when he was fatally shot by 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami with an improvised firearm. Abe was transported by a medical helicopter to Nara Medical University Hospital in Kashihara, where he was pronounced dead. Leaders from many nations expressed shock and dismay at Abe's assassination, which was the first of a former Japanese prime minister since Saitō Makoto and Takahashi Korekiyo during the 26 February incident in 1936, as well as the first of a major political figure in Japan, since Inejiro Asanuma's assassination in 1960. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida decided to hold a state funeral for Abe on 27 September. Yamagami was arrested at the scene and charged with attempted murder, which was upgraded to murder after Abe's death was confirmed. Yamagami told investigators that he had shot Abe in relation to a grudge he held against the Unification Church (UC), a new religious movement to which Abe and his family had political ties, over his mother's bankruptcy in 2002. The assassination brought scrutiny from Japanese society and media against the UC's alleged practice of pressuring believers into making exorbitant donations. Japanese dignitaries and legislators were forced to disclose their relationship with the UC, and Kishida was forced to reshuffle his cabinet amid plummeting public approval. On 31 August the LDP announced that it would no longer have any relationship with the UC and its associated organisations, and would expel members who did not break ties with the group. On 10 December, the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors passed two bills to restrict the activities of religious organisations such as the UC and provide relief to victims. Abe's killing has been described as one of the most effective and successful political assassinations in recent history due to the backlash against the Unification Church that it provoked. The Economist remarked that "Mr Yamagami’s political violence has proved stunningly effective...Political violence seldom fulfils so many of its perpetrator’s aims." Writing for The Atlantic, Robert F. Worth agreed, describing Yamagami as "among the most successful assassins in history." Background Shinzo Abe had served as Prime Minister of Japan between 2006 and 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020, when he resigned due to health concerns. He was the longest-serving prime minister in Japan's history. His maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, was himself prime minister from 1957 to 1960, and like Abe, was the target of an assassination attempt. Unlike Abe, he survived. Abe was the first former Japanese prime minister to have been assassinated since Saitō Makoto and Takahashi Korekiyo, who were killed during the February 26 incident in 1936, the first Japanese legislator to be assassinated since Kōki Ishii was killed by a member of a right-wing group in 2002, and the first Japanese politician to be assassinated during an electoral campaign since Iccho Itoh, then-mayor of Nagasaki, who was shot dead during his mayoral race in April 2007. Relationship between Abe's family and the Unification Church Abe, as well as his father Shintaro Abe and his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, had longstanding ties to the Unification Church (UC), a new religious movement known for its mass wedding ceremonies. Known officially as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU), the movement was founded by Sun Myung Moon in Korea in 1954 and its followers are colloquially known as "Moonies". Moon was a self-declared messiah and ardent anti-communist. Kishi's postwar political agenda led him to work closely with Ryoichi Sasakawa, a businessman and nationalist politician during the Second World War. As Moon's advisor, Sasakawa helped establish the UC in Japan in 1963 and assumed the roles of both patron and president of the church's political wing, International Federation for Victory over Communism (IFVOC, 国際勝共連合), which would forge intimate ties with Japan's conservative politicians. In this way, Sasakawa and Kishi shielded what would become one of the most widely distrusted groups in contemporary Japan. Moon's organisations, including the UC and the overtly political IFVOC, were financially supported by Sasakawa and Yoshio Kodama. When the UC still had a few thousand followers, its headquarters was located on land once owned by Kishi in Nanpeidaichō, Shibuya, Tokyo, and UC officials frequently visited the adjacent Kishi residence. By the early 1970s, UC members were being used by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as campaign workers without compensation. LDP politicians were also required to visit the UC's headquarters in South Korea and receive Moon's lectures on theology, regardless of their religious views or membership. In return, Japanese authorities shielded the UC from legal penalties over their often-fraudulent and aggressive practices. Subsequently, the UC gained much influence in Japan, laying the groundwork for its push into the United States and its later entrenchment. Such a relationship was passed on to Kishi's son-in-law, former foreign minister Shintaro Abe, who attended a dinner party held by Moon at the Imperial Hotel in 1974. In the US, the 1978 Fraser Report, an inquiry by the US Congress into American–Korean relations, determined that Kim Jong-pil, the founding director of the South Korean intelligence service and two-time prime minister of South Korea, had "organized" the UC in the early 1960s and was using it "as a political tool" on behalf of the authoritarian regime of President Park Chung Hee. In 1989, Moon urged his followers to establish their footing in Japan's parliament, then install themselves as secretaries for the Japanese lawmakers, and focus on those of Shintaro Abe's faction in the LDP. Moon also stressed that they must construct their political influence not only in the parliament, but also on Japan's district level. Shinzo Abe continued this relationship, and in May 2006, when he was Chief Cabinet Secretary, he and several cabinet ministers sent congratulatory telegrams to a mass wedding ceremony organised by the UC's front group, Universal Peace Federation (UPF, 天宙平和連合), for 2,500 couples of Japanese and Korean men and women. In spring 2021, the chairman of the UPF's Japanese branch, Masayoshi Kajikuri, called Abe and asked if the latter would consider speaking before an upcoming UPF rally in September if former US president Donald Trump also attended. Abe replied that he had to accept the offer should that be the case; he formally agreed to his participation on 24 August 2021. At the September rally, held ten months before the assassination, Abe stated to Kajikuri that, .... Discover the Motoko Mori Rachael Thomas popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Motoko Mori Rachael Thomas books.