Stranger Things

Jan. 18, 2019: Washington Times Corp. Founding Chairman Bo-hi Pak Dies (UC-Owned Washington Times)

QuoteBo-hi Pak, the founding chairman of The Washington Times Corp., who brought the flagship newspaper into existence in 1982 and who spent much of his life engaged in global diplomacy and peacemaking activities with Times' founders Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han Moon, died in Korea Jan. 12. He was 89. Lt. Col. Pak was the English translator for the Rev. Moon. He was at the evangelist's side at his large public speeches in the United States as well as many of the countless meetings Rev. Moon held with Unification Church members, leaders and guests.

Note: His kidnapping was not mentioned. Personally, if I survived a kidnapping by some Moonies, I'd want it mentioned in my obituary.

May 4, 2020: Dear Beloved True Mother, The Only Begotten Daughter (Family Fed - A Letter to Hak-ja Han)

QuoteAlso, about two years ago, you greeted the members of The Washington Times Fact-Finding Tour to Japan at Tokyo Hotel. As soon as you received a flower from the former director of the CIA and his wife, True Mother asked them, "Do you know who I am?" and you told them, "I am the Only Begotten Daughter."

June 7, 2021: Washington Times' Co-founder Vows to Strengthen its Position as Defender of
American Values (Guy Taylor for the UC-Owned Washington Times - Archived at TParents.org)

Aug. 10. 2022: UC Pushes Back Against 'Abusive' Media Reports in Wake of Shinzo Abe Assassination (Guy Taylor for the UC-Owned Washington Times/Internet Archive)

Quote"We strongly condemn the fake news and abusive language disseminated by a heartless media, which as hate speech, encourages religious discrimination, undermines the rights of individuals and, if anything, violates people's freedom of religion," he said.

2025

July 25: Faith Dragged Back into The Colosseum: When the State Turns Faith into a Spectacle of Control (Dr. Demian Dunkley, UC US Chairman & President for The Washington Times)

QuoteIn Korea today, the most dangerous thing you can be is faithful. On July 18, 2025, South Korean prosecutors launched a shocking assault—raiding multiple Family Federation facilities and storming the private residence of Dr. Hak Ja Han, known lovingly around the world as Holy Mother Han, the Mother of Peace, and the most prominent female spiritual leader on the planet.

Sept. 22: Religiocide in Korea (Massimo Introvigne for the UC-Owned Washington Times)
For easier access, the article is also on Massimo's site.

QuoteThe idea that Dr. Moon—whose initiatives have drawn presidents and prime ministers, including Donald Trump—would need to bribe a Korean leader for small favors and ceremonial seats at a presidential inauguration is not just implausible. It is insulting.

Related: Trump was paid $2.5 million for his video messages of support. Here is a later article, but the details were reported on well before the above piece:

Sept. 1, 2026: The Scandal-Plagued Moonies Still Have a Friend in Donald Trump (New Republic)

QuoteTrump gave three speeches for the church's front group, the Universal Peace Federation, between 2021 and 2022, for which he was paid $2.5 million—including one appearance that took place just 17 days after Abe's assassination.

The following mention of an event at The Washington Times building caught my eye, and I thought it suitable for this thread. Also, the title of Dr. for Mrs. Moon is interesting because it's false. She has some honorary degrees - one of course from the university Moon founded, but the title of Dr. is reserved for those with earned Ph.Ds. One very small cog in the cult-of-personality machine:

Oct. 20: Muslim Women Raise Global Alarm Over Detention of Faith Leader Dr. Moon (The National Law Review/American Muslim & Multifaith Women's Empowerment Council)

QuoteAt an interfaith prayer and solidarity gathering held at the Washington Times building in Washington, D.C., Anila Ali, President of AMMWEC, and Zeba Zebunnesa, AMMWEC Executive Board Member and Peace Ambassador joined Dr. Michael Jenkins, President, Universal Peace Federation (UPF) North America, along with other faith leaders from Sikh, Christian and Jewish communities to pray for Dr. Moon's release and call attention to her case.

This piece resulted in me reading some related articles, so it's a bit of a detour from almost every previous post in this thread which are almost solely focused on The Washington Times and to a lesser extent UPI. Hence, I split the following into one post:

Oct. 22, 2025: Christian Leaders Detained Without Conviction in South Korea (Andrew Salmon for The UC-Owned Washington Times)

QuoteFor more than 30 days and counting, 82-year-old Hak Ja Han Moon has been confined in a 70-square-foot cell at Seoul Detention Center, where the religious leader's attorneys say she has endured multiple interrogations lasting 10 to 12 hours.

I found the above quote interesting because pre-trial detention is standard operating procedure:

Feb. 26, 2023: Detention of Criminal Suspects in Korea Under Korea's Criminal Procedure Law (Sean Hayes for The Korean Law Blog)

I guess "Judge Orders Standard Operating Procedure be Followed in Cases Involving Christian Leaders" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

The same article explains why one such leader has been detained, although I would have thought the "President Lee Jae-myung must die" comment would have brought more scrutiny from authorities, which apparently it didn't.

QuoteRev. Son was indicted on charges of violating the Public Official Election Act. The pastor, a vocal conservative, supported Mr. Yoon and criticized Mr. Lee at rallies and from his pulpit. During a rally before his impending arrest, Rev. Son called Mr. Lee "the same as Hitler and the Nazis" and shouted, "Lee Jae-myung has to die for Korea to live."

Sept. 9, 2025: Ahead of Warrant Hearing, Leader of Now-Defunct Save Korea Compared Government to Nazis, said President Lee 'Has to Die' (The Korea Herald)

I didn't follow that case at all, but just a quick search shows he said this about those comments:

Aug. 12: Pro-Yoon Pastor Claims He Was Jailed for Criticizing Lee Administration — Here's The Truth

QuoteSon said that his time behind bars "shows that a pastor can be jailed for saying ordinary things depending on who is in power."

QuoteThe pastor was later detained on charges of violating the Public Official Election Act and the Local Education Autonomy Act in September 2025 and was released after a district court handed him a six-month prison sentence suspended for one year in January. ... And that wasn't Son's first brush with election law — he was previously fined 800,000 won (US$560) for illegal electioneering. ....On Friday, Son met US President Donald Trump at the White House, joined by his family and McCoy, the conservative pastor.

So he got a pretty light sentence, after a previous conviction, which didn't stop him later travelling overseas. That doesn't sound too harsh to me nor does it smell like religious persecution.

Related article, yuk ... Charlie Kirk is mentioned:

Sept. 2, 2026: A Korean Pastor Has Attracted Attention from the Trump administration (NPR)

I think the use of the term "heretical" is unrelated to accusations of cultic behaviors and cults of personalities, but I do like that Son isn't a fane of the UC per se. And yes I agree totally, heresy is something governments should not concern themselves with - bribary, corruption, tax evasion etc, not so much.

QuoteThis week, a Seoul court sentenced the head of the Unification Church to two years in jail for bribing South Korea's former first lady. Pastor Son considers such groups heretical, but he says that South Korea's government should leave them alone.

Dec. 16: Who is Han Hak-ja, 'True Mother' at Center of UC Scandals? (The Korea Times)

QuoteHan presides over a media network that includes The Washington Times, a conservative newspaper in the United States, and Segye Ilbo in Korea, all owned through church-affiliated companies and used to promote narratives sympathetic to the movement. Prosecutors say the church has not only maintained but strategically leveraged these outlets under Han's leadership, using political connections to protect and expand its business interests.

Dec. 20: A Washington Times mention caught my eye from this UC Facebook page, called The Monarch Report:

QuoteIn December 2025, Pastor Mark Burns—a prominent U.S. evangelical leader and spiritual advisor to President Trump—completed his third fact-finding mission to South Korea with Michael Jenkins, President of The Washington Times Foundation and Universal Peace Federation (UPF).

The delegation met with detained religious figures, including Dr. Hak Ja Han of the Unification Church and Pastor Son Hyun-bo of Segero Church, both held following raids targeting multiple religious organizations.

2026

March 6: 'Dangerous Precedent' for Religious Freedom: Critics Assail Tokyo Court's UC Ruling (Ben Wolfgang and Andrew Salmon for the UC-Owned Washington Times)

QuoteReactions poured in from around the world in the hours after the ruling, which critics cast as an unprecedented legal step by the Japanese court. More important, they said, it could be the first domino to fall in an international crackdown on religious freedom.

"Unfortunately, this decision treads into territory that benefits opponents of a free society," former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. "Having worked with Japan extensively on security and human rights matters ... I worry this precedent will harm Japan's standing as a champion of freedom in Asia and potentially advance the interests of those working against our mutual dedication to human dignity and religious freedom."

Related 1:
March 4, 2023: Trump, Pompeo Celebrate Group With UC Ties (The Asahi Shimbun)

QuoteFormer U.S. President Donald Trump sent a one-minute video message to an event in Seoul organized by a group related to the Unification Church. The Universal Peace Federation opened its "Peace Summit 2023" in the South Korean capital on May 2. The event will run until May 6. ... Mike Pompeo, who was secretary of state in the Trump administration, attended the event in person and gave a speech at the podium.

Related 2:
Oct. 26, 2023: UC-linked Group Paid Trump $2.5 mil. For Video Messages (The Mainichi Shimbun)

QuoteFormer U.S. President Donald Trump received some $2.5 million from the Universal Peace Federation (UPF), a Unification Church affiliated group, to make video appearances on three occasions between 2021 and 2022, while former Vice President Mike Pence was paid $550,000 for speaking at a UPF event, the Mainichi Shimbun has confirmed by acquiring U.S. official records and checking them with court documents in Japan.

Meanwhile, the UPF has maintained that the group didn't pay former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who made a video appearance at its event in September 2021. If this is true, we must question why Abe agreed to speak for the event free of charge. In the video, Abe said he "highly appreciated" the Unification Church, formally called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, for its efforts to "place importance on the value of family." This video appearance is believed to have been one of the triggers for his assassination in July 2022.

April 10, 2026: A Nobel Peace Prize for Religious Liberty (Massimo Introvigne for The Washington Times)

Aug. 17: Seoul Slammed Over Weaponized Legal System Targeting Church Leaders, New Religions (Andrew Salmon for the UC-Owned Washington Times)

Well, this is why The Washington Times was founded. A lot to unpack; here are a few quotes from the latter part of the article:

Quote"Minorities, in particular religious minorities, are usually attacked in three stages," said Massimo Introvigne, co-founder of CESNUR and editor of religious-freedom publication Bitter Winter. He listed intolerance in media, discrimination from administrative authorities and, finally, persecution and violence.

"That applies to totalitarian and democratic states," he warned. The petition noted that the case against Mr. Lee "unfolds in a climate where media representations of Shincheonji as a 'cult' often rely on polemical accounts by religious opponents who denounce it as heresy." ...

The Family Federation, which promotes conservative family values, has always opposed communism. That has generated powerful enemies, some of whom may be coalescing. Liberal Japanese anti-Federation activists visited Daejon, Korea, in September to join a conference with Evangelical Christian pastors and a professor from China's National Police Academy who specializes in oversight of religious movements.

Mr. Introvigne dubs the emergent trilateral grouping an "Unholy Alliance." Beijing is officially atheist and permits only state-sanctioned religious activities. State agencies root out underground churches and have suppressed a new religion, Falun Gong.

In 2019, some hardline Korean Christian clergy cooperated with Beijing to compel the deportation of worshippers of an underground Chinese religion, the Church of Almighty God, who had escaped to Korea seeking asylum. ...

Mr. Introvigne suggests that the biggest bully pulpit now exists in the United States. "In the U.S, there is more awareness of the problems taking place in a country that is a fundamental regional ally of the U.S.," he said.

Fun fact, the term "unholy alliance" was also used to describe the UC cozying up to Japanese politicians:

May 3, 2023: An Unholy Alliance: How the UC Penetrated Japan's Ruling Liberal Democratic Party (Nippon)

Aug. 31: Mother Moon's Conviction Threatens Religious Liberty Worldwide - The Global War on Faith (Newt Gingrich for the UC-Owned Washington Times)

Aug. 31: Family Federation Spiritual Leader Jailed for Two Years in South Korea (Andrew Salmon for the UC-Owned Washington Times)

QuoteThe church, which seeks the unification of Christian and other religions worldwide, has often drawn unfavorable attention in the U.S. for some of its practices, including mass weddings, but has enjoyed support from conservative political figures in the West. President Trump and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, among others, have spoken at federation-backed conferences. ...

The revelations linking Japanese lawmakers to the church revitalized a long legal campaign waged against the federation by a lawyers' group representing people who said their families had been coerced into donating to the church. The church responded that many donations — including half of those made by the mother of Mr. Abe's murderer — had been returned. It also said that practices such as "spiritual sales" of pricey religious trinkets had been discontinued years prior.

Nothing availed. Despite not having broken any Japanese laws, the church was dissolved after its final appeal was overturned in June. The question now is whether the federation will face a similar onslaught in Korea.

Trump's messages of support is mentioned in at least one other article by Andrew that I recall, but neither included any mention of the payments by the UC for those endorsements...

Related: July 14, 2023: Lucrative Speaking Fees for Donald & Melania Trump Revealed in Revised Personal Financial Disclosure Filing (CNN)

QuoteTrump, who leads polls for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, was paid a total of $2 million for speaking at two Universal Peace Federation World Summits in Bedminster, New Jersey, and Palm Beach, Florida. The group was established by the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the Korean evangelist and businessman who founded the Unification Church, and his wife, Hak Ja Han.

Sept. 3: How the UC Could Help Reconcile The Two Koreas (Joseph R. DeTrani for The UC-Owned Washington Times)

QuoteThe sentencing on Monday of Dr. Han — the federation's leader since the 2012 death of her husband — to two years in prison on bribery charges must have confounded the leadership in Pyongyang. ... One would hope that South Korean government would want to work with the Family Federation and UPF to reestablish a relationship with a hostile North Korea, given the excellent relationship UPF has with North Korea.

QuoteAmbassador DeTrani served over two decades with the CIA as a member of the Senior Intelligence Service.