Activities

VOV, is a nonprofit/non-governmental organization based in TRENTO ITALY and plays an essential role in guaranteeing a strong persecuted Christian community by providing accessibility, mobility, choice and freedom.

Its key aims are to bring the scattered persecuted Christian communities under the guardianship of VOV and build their capacity for raising collective voice to fully end discrimination and untouchability and to influence the state in formulating laws and policies to benefit the Christian persecuted communities in the world.

by Bitter Winter — Information laboriously obtained and verified by the specialized daily magazine “Bitter Winter” confirmed that in October 2024, 648 members of The Church of Almighty God (CAG) were arrested in the Jilin province, in China. Most of those arrested were women, and there are credible reports that several of them were tortured and sexually molested by police officers. Two female devotees, Wang Yuxia, 61, and Wang Fuhua, 49, died because of the torture.

A TV show offers a perfect example of how “not” to deal with the issue of religious minorities.

In this month of February, the Italian TV show “Zona Bianca” (“White Zone”) aired episodes devoted to Jehovah’s Witnesses that represent, in our opinion, a textbook example of how TV journalism should “not” deal with the very sensitive topic of religious minorities.

by Bitter Winter — Note: In publishing this appeal, “Bitter Winter” notes the historic importance of Moorish Science to African-American culture. It is one of the religions established by people of color during the Great Migration, and stands as a historic emblem of one stage in the long march to empowerment of Black people. Because it is a Black religion, Moorish Science has always provoked hostilities in the white-majority American population, but we all have a collective social duty to see that religious freedom is not circumscribed by racism.

We are international scholars of religion and human rights activists concerned with the increasing number of violations of freedom of religion or belief throughout the world. We admire South Korea’s rich and vibrant religious heritage and pluralism, and are grateful to the South Korean government for its participation in international efforts denouncing the violations of religious liberty in totalitarian countries.

How to prevent such an outcome? Human rights NGOs are calling on the Turkish authorities to follow their recommendations

In May 2023, the story of the 104 refugees of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL) who presented themselves at the Turkish side of the Kapikule border seeking access to asylum in Bulgaria, but were blocked and beaten by the Turkish police, became international news.

Dear French citizens, Commission and Senate,

Only today (04.02.2024) I was able to read the bill being tabled, supposedly aimed to strengthen the fight against "sectarian drifts", and as a European citizen I feel to be in a position of remarking the following.

Passing that law would be a mistake for France.

In the 17^th century Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico illustrated how we have witnessed a turn over of moments of civilisation and moments of barbarism. France, evidently in the grip of a moment of barbarism, is once again proposing a law to strike down the so-called "sectarian drifts", to stifle any thought not aligned with the single thought so much in vogue today.

Alessandro Amicarelli, chairman of the European Federation for Freedom of Belief (FOB) and trustee of All Faiths Network UK, together with Massimo Introvigne, director in charge of Bitter Winter (online paper on Human Rights in China and the world), Rosita Soryte, director of the Observatory on the Religious Freedom of Refugees (ORLIR) and a member of the Scientific Committee of FOB, Eric Roux, president of the Union of the Churches of Scientology in France and Peter Zoherer, executive director of the Forum for Religious Freedom, Europe (FOREF Europe) ...

by Bitter Winter — The proposed law immediately targets the Unification Church, based on controversial data about “victims” and “damages,” but establishes an unfair general principle with ominous implications for the future.

by Bitter Winter — Twelve NGOs, representing a who’s who of religious liberty advocacy throughout the world, protest the Japanese government’s actions.

The following is an appeal promoted by Bitter Winter, an online magazine on religious liberty and human rights published by CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions. OB, signatory of the appeal, over the years has published a number of articles on FECRIS and its role in spreading anti-cult ideology.

On January 28 an online seminar entitled "Religious Freedom, Laws of 1929 and Treaties: an impossible reform?" was held. It was organized by the European Federation for Freedom of Belief (FOB) in order to address an issue of great interest in the debate of Italian scholars who are interested in religious freedom, hoping for an important reform at national level that could ensure greater equality of religious and spiritual groups.

For more than seven years, the horrific crimes committed by the Houthi group have been escalating as war crimes against the Yemeni people, in front of the international community and human rights and humanitarian organizations.

Our French associated CAP LC (Coordination des Associations et des Particuliers pour la Liberté de Conscience, NGO with ECOSOC consultative status) has reported the UNAFDI to the French National Court of Audit. CAP LC has repeatedly denounced the conduct of anti-cult movements aimed at limiting the activity of religious minorities they dislike, if not eliminating them as required by the controversial French law About-Picard (Law 2001-504 of June 12, 2001), or the Russian Yarovaya Law on Extremism.

Our French associated CAP LC (Coordination des Associations et des Particuliers pour la Liberté de Conscience, NGO with ECOSOC consultative status) has signed a letter addressed to to the Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to call on OIC member states to uphold their human rights standards by repealing the death penalty for apostasy and blasphemy.

by Alessandro Amicarelli — In a previous article, I examined Germana Carobene’s recent article on how Scientology is labeled as a “cult” (setta in Italian, secte in French) to deny it the status of a religion. Carobene is a professor of law, and she examines “legal narratives.” Rosita Šorytė has a different background, in politics, having served as a diplomat for 25 years. In an article on the labeling of Scientology published in the July-August 2021 issue of The Journal of CESNUR, she admits that she knew Scientology only from the media until she started working on religious liberty some years ago. She served as a diplomat in France and in the United States, where several media, although with differences between one country and the other, called Scientology a “cult.” They rarely defined what a “cult” was, but conveyed the impression it was something “bad.”

by Alessandro Amicarelli — Why are some religions and religious movements labeled as “cults” or “extremist”? And what are the legal and political consequences of using such labels? Two recently published studies about how these labels have been applied to the Church of Scientology offer new insights on the matter. One, by a law professor, examines the legal side of labelling; the second, by a former diplomat, its political side. In this first article, I offer some comments on the study by law professor Germana Carobene, published in the Italian journal Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale. In a second article, I will examine a somewhat parallel study by Rosita Šorytė published in The Journal of CESNUR.

Sociological and philosophical investigations, which are prodromal to a juridical reflection, show a difficulty in the conceptual framing of the term 'religion', both by those who claim a knowledge, a behavior - secular, agnostic or atheist - and by those who, questioning the beliefs, symbols, systems of representation of reality, produced by a certain society, want to safeguard the objects of investigation, leading them back to a claim of unquestionable scientificity. This term can, however, be used in its polyvalence, provided that it is not used to discriminate in a positive/negative sense the values and forms in which it is variously presented, since at its basis there must be the need to understand and protect the inmost area of individual freedom.

by Alessandro Amicarelli — The webinar “Dialogue, Diversity, and Freedom: Reacting to the Tai Ji Men Case” was organized by CESNUR and Human Rights Without Frontiers on May 24, 2021. This webinar was part of the events organized by NGOs for the 2021 United Nations World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, which was commemorated on May 21. It was part of the monthly webinars on the Tai Ji Men case that Bitter Winter supports.