AUM cult reviving, survey finds

TOKYO, Aug. 26 (Kyodo) -- The AUM Shinrikyo religious cult has been rebuilding its organizational setup and collecting money from affiliates since it escaped being outlawed in January this year, according to results of a survey by the Public Security Investigation Agency, unveiled Tuesday.

After the Public Security Commission, an independent body, announced in late January that it had decided not to outlaw AUM, the cult resumed activity, including the collecting of money from affiliated personal computer sales companies, the results said.

AUM is accused of carrying out the Tokyo subway sarin nerve gas attack in March 1995 which left 12 people dead and thousands injured, as well as an earlier sarin gas attack in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, central Japan, in June 1994, which killed seven people, and other crimes.

AUM founder Shoko Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Asahara, is currently on trial on charges involving 17 criminal cases, including responsibility for the two gas attacks.

Of 427 AUM officials and followers arrested in connection with a series of AUM-related crimes, 138 have already returned to the cult, the survey results said. As of the end of July, the number of AUM ''priests'' stood at more than 500, they said.

The cult has been pressing former followers, in particular those with special knowledge about science, to return to AUM, saying that they would otherwise go to hell, they said.

When the Public Security Commission made its decision against banning AUM on Jan. 31, the Public Security Investigation Agency was able to confirm continuing activities of only four departments of the cult, including its supreme decision-making and judicial affairs bodies, according to the survey results.

But AUM has since established 10 new departments and sections, including an accounting department and a business department overseeing personal computer shops, they said.

''The cult has been restoring its organization to rival that in 1995, when the Tokyo subway gas attack took place,'' an official of the agency said in commenting on the survey results.

AUM's local organizations had been closed due partly to the authorities' investigations, but the cult has succeeded in reorganizing its branches in Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, Mito in Ibaraki Prefecture, northeast of Tokyo, Takasaki in Gunma Prefecture, eastern Japan, Kanazawa in Ishikawa Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast, and Matsumoto, they said.

The cult has also set up a new training hall in Tokyo, which can accommodate more than 100 people, they said.

The survey report said that the cult now has 15 branches and one training hall in Japan and that there are AUM followers living in about 110 places across the nation.

At cult seminars, AUM followers still look up to Asahara as the absolute being and are again being taught a dogma that justifies even murder on behalf of the cult, they said.

In Tokyo and elsewhere, the cult owns 12 companies and five shops, among which are personal computer sales companies dealing in products on the Internet, assembling personal computer parts imported from Taiwan for sale in Japan and handing their income over to the cult, the report said.

The Public Security Commission rejected a request that the 1952 Antisubversive Activities Law be used to outlaw AUM, filed in July last year by the Public Security Investigation Agency, saying, ''The cult can no longer pose a threat to Japanese society.''

Akio Kanazawa, head of the agency's No. 1 research department, said that the department continues to check up on the cult even after rejection of the banning request and is compiling survey results every three months.

''At present, there are no signs the cult is engaged in acts of destructive violence. If dangerous signs emerge again in the future, our agency might have to ask (the commission) to reconsider outlawing the cult,'' he said.

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