Dr. Haruhisa Handa
(The Sponsor for SMU's Handa Centre for Global Governance and Human Rights)
Below is an intriguing email that was initially sent to The Real Singapore, but eventually found its way to the Singapore Hall of Shame (SHS). It details the shocking failure of both the mainstream media and the new media to conduct basic story research and fact checks.
Date: 09 Nov 2012From: XXXX XXXXTo: admin@therealsingapore.comBro,
Your CSI articles against ST reporter Miss Maria Almenoar are epic! Standards of msm reporting is really in the dumpster and we need people like you who can show the world why they are the 154thmedia. I was thinking of doing my own csi on ST reporter Tessa Wong but I think I wont have the same impact as you.
Tessa wong wrote a piece on SMU cancelling the opening of Handa centre for global governance and human rights (http://www.singapolitics.sg/news/smu-cancels-opening-research-centre). Typical shoddy report from the sph school of gutter reporting. If she bothered to do some simple google searches, she would learn that dr Haruhisa Handa (the financial backer of the centre) runs a Shinto-derived religion “Worldmate” (formerly known as Cosmomate (eos.kokugakuin.ac.jp and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto_sects_and_schools).Being a typical sham new age religions, Worldmate is a derivative of Buddhism that conducts secret rituals and sells cheap trinkets passing off as religious tokens. Under the cover of charity and welfare, Worldmate extends its influence and cash pool across the world. As they expand into new countries, its devotees increase and so too does their cash purse. I get this information from a 2003 court case involving Worldmate, Dr Harushia Handa and Tojusha Publishing inc (www.wmdata.main.jp/saiban.html). The Tokyo national tax bureau found that Worldmate concealed 6 billion yen of income. This money is collected from followers as fees for the exorcism of evil spirits. Also, Handa was sued by his female followers for sexual harassment! He settled this with 5.5. million Yen for each of his victims. Now they remain quiet as part of the settlement deal.But organisations like SMU love people like Handa because he can bring in loads of money to be patron of centres and no one cares about where he got the money from. Curtin university set up one such centre thru his patronage (www.smh.com.au/entertainment/opera/behind-every-good-opera-theres-a-very-generous-patron). Handa has also delivered aid to the fukushima nuclear meltdown recovery efforts (huffingtonpost.com/katherine-marshall/311-in-japan-untold-stor_b_1336636.html). I wouldn’t be surprised that at his level of influence and connections to Shinto religion, he is somehow financed by Yakuza.But we will never know the full truth unless the ST covers the indepth story. But I doubt tessa wong will give me the time of day. I hope this information is useful for you bro.
The questionable character of Dr Handa is shocking and warrants deeper inspection. SHS intends to take this up with SMU and relevant authorities.
But what is equally shocking is that this information is easily verified, and can be surfaced through a few quick online searches. It thus makes you wonder how everyone could have missed this?
For instance, when TOC first broke the news on the premature closing of the Handa centre, some of this information on Dr Handa was posted on The Online Citizen’s (TOC) Facebook page but was it went unnoticed by the public.
Alex Au, of Yawningbread fame, was also surprisingly found wanting on this aspect. Grabbing the opportunity to take a swipe at Government, Mr Au could not see beyond Dr Handa’s tag of ‘philanthropist’ (http://yawningbread.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/neither-priest-nor-philanthropist-welcome-here/), and failed to research into how Dr Handa misused and abused these monies and his position.
The most disappointing of all was The Real Singapore (TRS). Pre- occupied with stealing articles from the MSM and other blogs, TRS could not recognise a real scoop that landed on its lap. From our checks with the whistleblower, TRS did not even acknowledge his email. In fact, TRS was not the only socio-political blog to ignore him.
Not being the first choice amongst the local websites was ego bruising but understandable since I just started not so long ago. Nonetheless, it has become a real gain for SHS as I find it news worthy.
So if you have someone to shame, an issue to publicise, a cause to gain support or just something to share, feel free to email me at sghallofshame@gmail.com or like me on facebook at www.facebook.com/sporehallofshame. SHS - Bringing out the worse in Singaporeans.
