Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 24, 1995 TAG: 9503240123
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TOKYO LENGTH: Medium
Former followers and investigators of the apocalyptic Aum Shinri Kyo cult in Japan and Russia are painting a chilling picture of conditions in its compounds and communes: filthy, bizarre and cruel.
``It appeared that many young people were affected by their preaching, some suffered serious health damage, some came down with severe mental disorders,'' Russian Counterintelligence Agency spokesman Vladimir Tomarovsky said Thursday in Moscow.
Aum Shinri Kyo, whose name means Sublime Truth, has six centers in Moscow and a branch in the southern city of Vladikavkaz and claims more than 30,000 members in Russia. The group says it has about 10,000 followers in Japan.
Tomarovsky said he had no grounds to suspect the Moscow branch of planning any terrorist activity. But the group faces possible criminal and civil charges of fraud and depriving young people of their rights.
In the days since the cult gained notoriety from suspicions it was behind Monday's Tokyo subway gas attack, escaped former members and their advocates have depicted a life of fear.
Inside the group's commune near Kamikuishiki, about 70 miles west of Tokyo, some sect members were found smeared with dirt, wandering aimlessly.
In a raid on the commune Wednesday, police and paramedics carried out about 50 people who were apparently too weak, dazed or ill to move. Six were hospitalized, and doctors said they were all suffering from dehydration and malnutrition.
The patients remained uncooperative during their treatment, refusing to speak at all, said Dr. Shigeo Saito of the Yamanashi Red Cross Hospital.
One patient, a woman in her 50s, was comatose and possibly suffering from a drug addiction, Saito said.
A 64-year-old innkeeper, whose two daughters are followers, told the national newspaper Asahi that he was kidnapped from his bed and woke up at a Tokyo hospital run by the group. He said he was then taken to the Kamikuishiki commune, and finally escaped five months later.
New arrivals were given intravenous injections in the neck for several weeks as part of ``medical treatment,'' the innkeeper told the newspaper.
Every morning, he was forced to drink several gallons of warm water and then vomit as part of ``training,'' he added. The water came from a hose connected to a plastic container on the wall.
``I told them it was unbearable, but they never stopped,'' he said.
Lawyers supporting former members and families of current followers of the cult say at least 1,000 people have sought counseling or protection after contacts with the group. Many, however, return to the group because of loneliness, said attorney Taro Takimoto.
Shoko Asahara, who founded the sect in 1984, gathered followers with his claims that people can attain enlightenment through yoga, meditation and psychic training. He also predicted that the world would end in 1997, but that sect followers would survive.
Lawyers say newcomers to the sect are kept in cell-like rooms with no windows, where they are given medication and gallons of water to cleanse their system. This continues until they agree to join the commune and donate a huge sum of money to the sect, Takimoto's group says.
Members also receive electric shocks, the lawyers' group says. Police who raided the compound Wednesday found a man wearing what looked like an aviator's helmet with wires protruding from electrodes stuck to it.
A former follower, a woman in her 40s, told the newspaper Mainichi that she had to hand over her cash and jewelry, provide a list of her assets and sign an agreement allowing the sect to handle them if she died.
The woman said she had to sign a will in which she agreed that her family would not hold the group responsible if she were to die.
Leaders of the Moscow branch of Sublime Truth held a news conference Thursday to deny brainwashing and ill-treatment of members.
``We are opening our center to you, to show that we do not preach violence,'' said a Japanese man who identified himself only as Juyu.
He spoke in a large room with drab brown walls adorned with portraits of sect leader Shoko Asahara. About two dozen members, mostly in their 20s, attended the conference.
Roman Miroshenko, 24, said, ``If you want to be released, you must get rid of all that ties you down, including your possessions.'' Before he could continue, an older member told him to go to another room.
Dmitry Saprykin, another branch leader, claimed members were free to come and go, and that funds came from ``voluntary donations'' made by followers.
by CNB