SEOUL, South Korea — Religious freedom advocates lambasted the two-year prison term given Monday to Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, the 83-year-old leader of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, as an assault on religious liberty.
Dr. Han, the widow of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, was found guilty in a trial this year of bribing political figures and embezzling related funds — charges she has consistently denied.
Her supporters have characterized her prosecution and the recent proceedings against other conservative religious and political figures in South Korea as little more than a political witch hunt by the left-leaning administration of President Lee Jae-myung.
Mike Pompeo, who served as CIA director and secretary of state in the first Trump administration, posted on social media that Dr. Han’s sentence was “a betrayal of South Korea’s hard-won democratic values.”
“I pray that the government of South Korea reconsiders this case on appeal and does not go further down the path of religious persecution,” said Mr. Pompeo, who has attended Family Federation events in South Korea and Japan.
The organization said in a statement that it deeply apologizes for causing “big concerns and disappointment to the people,” but cannot accept the ruling against Dr. Han and will appeal it.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who, like Mr. Pompeo, has attended Family Federation events and has championed its activities, said South Korea’s action against Dr. Han is part of a worldwide attack on religion.
“In what has been described as a ‘global war on God,’ the weaponization of the state against communities of faith is occurring in plain sight,” the high-profile Republican wrote in a column in The Washington Times. “The most urgent and tragic battleground of this struggle is unfolding right now in South Korea.”
Mr. Gingrich dismissed Dr. Han’s trial as “highly politicized … a systematic, state-sponsored campaign to dismantle a religious movement.”
He warned that the trial was “merely the spearhead” of a much larger maneuver to “disband the Unification Church outright.”
Rev. Moon founded the Unification Church as a new religion in South Korea in 1954. Dr. Han joined him as a partner in leading the movement after their marriage in 1960. Since the church’s rebranding as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, it has been a global religious movement. Under Dr. Han, it has promoted conservative, family values, interfaith dialogue, religious freedom and conflict resolution. It also operates a network of businesses, including The Times.
According to the court, Dr. Han, seeking political favors, ordered the bribery of the wife of then-President Yoon Suk Yeol and a lawmaker from Mr. Yoon’s conservative People Power Party.
Both were found guilty of taking bribes and are serving prison terms.
Mr. Yoon himself was impeached and is now serving a life sentence after an unsuccessful and short-lived attempt to impose martial law in December 2024.
The Lee administration, which took power in June 2025, has overseen a sweeping series of special investigations into conservative figures connected to Mr. Yoon, including Dr. Han.
Dr. Han, who is virtually blind and has a heart condition, has been held in detention for 11 months.
The sentence Dr. Han received suggested to a European critic that prosecutors lacked compelling evidence.
In the pages of the specialist religious freedom publication Bitter Winter, Massimo Introvigne wrote that the alleged bribes totaled “less than the price of a modest apartment in Seoul” and questioned whether those who were bribed would have sold their influence so cheaply.
Mr. Introvigne, an Italian expert in new religions and an energetic promoter of freedom of belief, said the two-year sentence handed down by the judge was intended to “save the prosecutors’ face.” Prosecutors had asked for a 13-year sentence.
The South Korean Constitution guarantees the right to both freedom of expression and freedom of belief.
“The evidence suggests that Dr. Han was targeted for her religious and political beliefs,” Mr. Pompeo said.
He called the situation “deeply troubling for anyone who cares about religious liberty and free expression.”
In January, Mr. Lee met with mainstream South Korean religious leaders and suggested dissolving the Family Federation, branding it heretical.
“This is not the language of historic democracies,” Mr. Gingrich said.
An independent lawmaker filed a partial amendment to South Korea’s Civil Act that would expand the government’s power over religious organizations in January.
The intent of the act is clear in the way some Korean media have colloquially dubbed it “The Church Dissolution Act.”
The amendment is pending.
People Power Party officials told The Times in June that they were unsure why the amendment had not been pushed into the legislative cycle, given the majority that Mr. Lee’s Democratic Party of Korea has in the National Assembly.
With overseas eyes on Mr. Lee’s government, the action may simply be too hot to handle.
“President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio should let South Korea know that these attacks on religious freedom could jeopardize our countries’ unique relationship,” Mr. Gingrich wrote.
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