The education ministry on Thursday sent out to Tokyo District Court a notice asking it to impose an administrative fine on the religious group known as the Unification Church for failing to answer a number of questions submitted by the ministry.
The district court will examine the plan behind closed doors. If it decides that the punishment is appropriate, a representative officer of the group, officially called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, will face a fine of up to ¥100,000.
Suspecting that some practices of the Unification Church, such as law violations, meet conditions for asking a court to issue a dissolution order to the group, the ministry exercised its right, for the first time in November last year, to question and seek answers from the group based on the religious corporation law.