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Nichijewhttp://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~shibuken/RINJI/gizo-chisai.htm#Eng Eventually the defamation case was overturned by the Supreme Court but the fact of the altered photos remained.
Here is the SGI photo of the purported Kempon Hokke Gohonzon shop which is actually on the grounds of the Minobu sect: [
web.archive.org]
Mark
Mark, thank you for posting this link! I copied it, and am printing it here -- so that it doesn't magically disappear like other articles and videos that SGI doesn't like.
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Religious Affairs Bureau Notice No. 3143
December 6, 1999
Nichiren Shoshu Religious Affairs Bureau
Nichiren Shoshu Wins the Forged Photo Case
Major Blow for Daisaku Ikeda and Soka Gakkai
Tokyo District Court Ends -- Daisaku Ikeda and Soka Gakkai Guilty of Defamation
The Tokyo Distrcit Court ruled on the Forged Photo Case today December 6, 1999. The Sixth Civil Division Presiding Judge Taiichi Kajimura found against defendants Daisaku Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai, ordering them to pay damages totalling 4 million yen to the plaintiffs Nichiren Shoshu and Taisekiji, a tremendous monetary award by the usual standards of Japanese judgements in defamation cases.
The Tokyo Distrcit Court found that the media articles featuring forged photographs, including the "geisha photo" published by Daisaku Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai to defame and slander the priesthood, were false publications that damaged the priesthood's good name. The Tokyo District Court's heavy judgement is highly significant. This award publically exposes the unforgivable injustices committed by Daisaku Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai.
FORGED PHOTO CASE BACKGROUND
In November 1986, High priest Nikken attended an informal banquet to celebrate the 70th birthdays of the late Rev Hoin Abe and late Rev Hosen Shiina. These two priests organised and made arrangements for the banquet, inviting couples who were their close friends. High priest Nikken Shonin accepted their invitation as someone closely acquainted with the two priests.
The Soka Gakkai obtained a photograph of the occasion from Hosho Shiina, a breakaway priest who was involved in hte preparations of the banquet. For this reason Shiina was well aware of the nature of the party. The Soka Gakkai altered the photograph, falsifying it to make it appear as if High Priest Nikken was "entertaining himself with geisha" on his own. It further produced a malicious and defamatory article with extreme and contemptuous headlines that featured the forged photograph, repeated sensationalist and defamatory publications, and resorted to injurious attacks on the priesthood. Daisaku Ikeda, the absolute leader of the Soka Gakkai, not only made no attempt to restrain the defamatory publications, but instigated and collaborated in these repeated and persisted attacks on the priesthood.
In the wake of these media attacks, the priesthood filed suit with Tokyo District Court seeking payment of damages and other remedies. The priesthood's purpose was twofold: first, to make known the truth about the allegations made by the publications described above; and second, to publically pursue and have condemned the behaviour of of Daisaku Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai, who persistently and heatedly attacked the priesthood, and to reveal their true, egregious nature to society at large.
The priesthood engaged in painstaking litigation over seven long years. During this action, the breakaway priest Hosho Shiina, Soka Gakkai vice president Isao Nozaki, and Seikyo Shimbun staff members took the witness stand, making desperate excuses to evade the responsibility of of Daisaku Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai. Indeed, the defendant attempted to justify its defamtory publications by producing expert analysis of the publications by a so-called academic media expert.
In today's ruling, Presiding Judge Kajimura strongly condemned the publications and rejected the excuses given by Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai: "The publications' passages at issue are tantamount to groundless slander of a person . . . and amount to nothing more than a litany of ridicule, abuse, slander, and defamation against the plaintiffs . . . In light of the language of the passages at issue and the circumstantial facts under which the photograph was taken, the injurious nature of the publications is unacceptable by the standards of social convention." The ruling further clearly outlined the defendant Soka Gakkai's responsibility: "Members of the religious community must obviously conform to the same rules as the rest of society at large."
Judge Kajimura also found that Daisaku Ikeda had a reasonable duty to prevent the Soka Gakkai from acting in the injurious way it did, as he is the "absolute, supreme leader of the defendant Soka Gakkai, then and now," and was therefore personally liable for the publication of the forged photograph.
The ruling further concludes that Daisaku Ikeda was aware of defendant Soka Gakkai's plan to carry out the injurious acts and that it is wholly tenable to infer that he actively condoned the practise, as he is the de facto absolute supreme leader of the defendant Soka Gakkai.
Today's ruling is a revealing exposure by a court of law and public institution of the true nature of the attacks on the priesthood by Daisaku Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai: falsehood and fabrication. Next, the preisthood intends to take appropriate steps to deal vigorously with the Soka Gakkai's malignant actions both in Japan and abroad.
1999/12/31 0:30
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