Soka Gakkai head Ikeda allegedly raped follower

Japan Times/June 5, 1996

A former Soka Gakkai member and her husband filed a damages suit June 5 with the Tokyo District Court against Daisaku Ikeda, head of the huge lay Buddhist organization, claiming Ikeda raped her. In her lawsuit, Nobuko Nobuhira said she was raped by Ikeda three times, in June 1973, August 1983 and August 1991. Nobuko, 69, and her husband, Junko, 74, are demanding 75 million yen in compensation.

A Soka Gakkai spokesman later commented that the rape allegation, details of which were published in a weekly magazine, is a sheer fabrication.

Speaking at a news conference, Nobuhira sobbed as she said, "I endured and endured for years." Nobuhira, who joined the sect in 1956 and served as a senior member, said she was raped by the Soka Gakkai honorary president at the sect's facilities and on a street in Hokkaido. She said she was dismissed from her post after she sent a letter to Ikeda in 1992, questioning his responsibility.

It was only this February that she talked to her husband about her experiences. "He was very nice to me. I could not hurt him," Nobuhira said, explaining why she had been unable to leave the sect or take action against Ikeda at an earlier stage.

Postscript: The Nobuhira lawsuit against Ikeda was dismissed by a Japanese court in 1996 and in 2006 that lower court decision was upheld by the Supreme Court.