JAKARTA - A 72-year-old man was arrested on Wednesday last week for allegedly nailing a straw doll bearing the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin to a sacred tree at a Shinto shrine near Tokyo, police said.
The grandfather, Mitsunobu Hino, is suspected of vandalizing property and trespassing, police in Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture said. The doll features an image of Putin's face and comes with an inscription on the chest wishing the Russian leader dead.
Hino was accused of trespassing on the grounds of Mikazuki Matsudo Shrine at around 2:10 p.m. local time on May 19. He then made a hole in the 'shinboku' or sacred tree, by nailing a straw doll there, reports Kyodo News June 15.
Security camera footage from the shrine grounds shows a man who appears to be Hino, stuffing what looks like a straw doll into his bag and climbing the stairs. Two holes 4 centimeters deep had been left in the sacred tree.
Police have confirmed President Putin's straw dolls have been similar in more than 10 temples in the eastern Japanese city since May, saying there is a high probability that the culprits were the same, due to the similar size of the dolls and the handwriting on accompanying notes.
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The history of this temple stretches back more than 800 years. Nobuo Shibuya, an 81-year-old lay representative, said, "It's unthinkable that someone would nail something like this, in a place where people come to pray for good health."
It is known, as quoted by Newsweek, that the doll 'wara ningyō' which translates to 'straw doll' in English, has been used historically in Sakura Country to ward off evil.
However, dolls of this type have also been used as part of supernatural rituals, with dolls representing the subject of the curse. In the straw doll nailed to President Putin, the message is chilling.
"Vladimir Putin, born October 7, 1952. Pray for his extermination," reads the inscription on the doll.
Local media said the doll looked like a statue to express criticism of Putin, amid the ongoing Ukraine war that he launched on February 24.
Although criticism of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is widespread in Japan, locals have criticized the act of nailing dolls to a sacred tree at a shrine.
"I want the sacred tree to be treated with respect," a local resident told Japanese daily newspaper The Mainichi.
"The temple is not a place to curse people," said another.
The temple itself also hopes that such actions will stop, although they also hope that the war will end soon.
"I can understand the feeling of wanting the war to end. But please stop doing things like that to the sacred tree," Yukihiro Tajima, 60, an official at Mikazuki Shrine.
Separately, a cleaning volunteer who found straw dolls hammered into a sacred tree at Sobataka Shrine, in Matsudo described the objects as 'cursed' and 'disgusting'.
"I pray every day that peace will come to Ukraine as soon as possible, but this is not good," they said.
In Japanese Shintoism, spirits known as 'kodama' are believed to inhabit trees that are 100 years old. The trees are often found near temples.
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