Anti-cults

Sharon Verzeni, a Midsummer Night's Nightmare

On October 8th 1600 A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare was published by Thomas Fisher. On a 2024 midsummer night in Northern Italy a young woman, Sharon Verzeni, 33 years old, popped out of her home for a night walk when her short and fatal midsummer nightmare started. In fact, minutes later someone attacked her and after managing to call the local ambulance service for help she died.

The United Nations stigmatises the Japanese government's guidelines on 'cults'.

In a recent article, Professor Massimo Introvigne reported on an alarming increase in incidents of violence perpetrated in Japan against members of the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses and an equally alarming increase – according to Jehovah's Witnesses of up to 638 percent – of hate crimes and hate speeches.

Anti-cultists at work in Argentina against the Yoga School

"Repeat a lie a hundred, a thousand, a million times and it will become a truth" is a phrase attributed to Nazi hierarch Joseph Goebbels, Minister of the Propaganda of the Third Reich. Whether the attribution is correct or not, this practice is constantly used in all spheres to try to inculcate in others or in the public opinion a certain modus pensandi (way of thinking) and, consequently, a certain modus operandi. It is certainly used by the anti-cultists, as repeatedly reported on this site.

Hate Crimes Epidemic Against the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Japan: Who Is Responsible?

Documents prove that private anti-cult organizations had a key role in the creation of government documents that caused a surge of hate speech and violence.

by Massimo Introvigne — In June 2023, while peacefully engaging in preaching, a female Jehovah’s Witness in her 70s was assaulted by a 57-year-old man.

New law on 'sectarian abuses' under review by the Constitutional Council

The outcry over the new French law that has established the crime of "psychological submission" aimed at "strengthening the fight against sectarian drifts" and, from bad to worse, the crime of incitement to refuse treatment or the adherence to unconventional practices, is not fading. But the most attentive have not missed the fact that the new crime seriously endangers freedom of religion or belief, an old target of French laicity. Also because in all of this there is the unwieldy hand of MIVILUDES. 

Sweden like France: persecutory behaviour against new religions by the authorities intensifies

While France, through the government agency MIVILUDES, is targeting the followers of MISA Yoga and its spiritual leader Gregorian Bivolaru, Sweden, which has always been seen as a vanguard of tolerance, inclusiveness and human rights, has unexpectedly engaged in persecution of a new Muslim religious movement, the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light. The director of Human Rights Without Frontiers, Willy Fautré gave a detailed account of this, which we publish below.

MIVILUDES at work: MISA Yoga believers and their spiritual leader Gregorian Bivolaru arrested in France

Under the pretext that the number of "saisines" (dubious and controversial reports) received by the MIVILUDES was increasing, on November 15, 2023, Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, Minister Delegate for Citizenship and Urban Development in the French government and MIVILUDES superintendent, presented a bill to "strengthen the fight against cultic deviances." Today, thanks to an article in The European Times® NEWS (reproduced below) signed by Willy Fautré, director o

The French government repudiates the motto 'Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité'.

"Approving that law would be a mistake for France," wrote Fabrizio d'Agostini, FOB's scientific advisor and founding member, regarding the bill to strengthen the fight against sectarian deviance that the French government approved despite the Senate's contrary opinion. "The history of France, but also of humanity, is 'chock-full' of similar laws, sometimes less refined, sometimes more brutal, mostly against religious minorities but not only and they have always been bloody stories of death, pain, suffering. They still are."

Recurring cycles in the history of intollerance

In the 17th 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.

Update on the Buenos Aires Yoga School

Alessandro Amicarelli — On December 7, 2023, an important development happened in the Argentinian court case of the Buenos Aires Yoga School (BAYS). The Court of Appeals annulled the elevation to trial of the defendants and sent the case back to the investigating judge, urging him to evaluate the new evidence that had surfaced, in dialogue with the parties. The prosecutors filed an appeal in cassation against the Court of Appeals decision.

The retaliation law strikes the FECRIS, at risk of dissolution

In the article published below, Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers, describes a curious example of retaliation law that sees FECRIS - a supporter of the French About-Picard law of 12 June 2001, which provides for the dissolution of minority religious groups accused of 'abuse of weakness' (abus de faiblesse) against their followers - in the dock with a request for dissolution proposed by our French confederate CAP LC (Coordination des Associations et des Particuliers pour la Liberté de Conscience, an NGO with ECOSOC consultative status).

Media and religious minorities: when persecution is 'between the lines'

We share an important contribution by Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers, published in Bitter Winter on the issue of how the media demonise religious minorities. Already in the past, Fautré had denounced the Belgian media's campaigns against the Christian congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, giving misleading when not outright false information, which was punctually refused in court. But so be it, the damage was done and the aim achieved.

Spanish Jehovah's Witnesses indemnified by AEVTJ's anti-cultists

Nazism justified the extermination of the Jews - and other disliked minorities, including Jehovah's Witnesses - on the theory that they were a kind of disease that endangered the superior races, primarily the German Aryan race. Painful history, but past history... or maybe not! The anti-Spanish Association of the Victims of the Jehovah's Witnesses (AEVTJ) claims that being a Jehovah's Witness is like having 'diabetes', i.e. a disease that must be monitored, treated and possibly eradicated. For the good of mankind, that is.

The Proposed Freezing of Assets of Religious Corporations the Government Seeks to Dissolve: A Danger for All Faiths in Japan

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.

The Russian Campaign Against the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Its Influence in Central Asia

Rosita Šorytė — In Central Asian countries, courts have penalized the Jehovah’s Witnesses for allegedly damaging the mental health of their victims and propagating “religious extremism.” These accusations did not originate in Central Asia but were imported there from Russia. After examining some specific court cases, the paper discusses three main Russian accusations against Jehovah’s Witnesses (...)

FECRIS Russian accomplices' activities highlighted at the OSCE 2022

After two years of online activities due to COVID-related problems, finally OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, was able to organize again a in-person yearly Human Dimension Meeting in Warsaw held from September 26 to October 7. One of the issues discussed was the anti-cult activities by FECRIS and its Russian's accomplices.