Anti-cults

Italy has recently seen the proposal of a law intended to punish mental manipulation, particularly ascribed to so-called “cults,” with prison sentences ranging from three to eight years. In an interview published by Bitter Winter, attorney Alessandro Amicarelli, chairman of Freedom of Belief (FOB), speaks with sociologist Massimo Introvigne, director of CESNUR, who raises serious concerns about the effectiveness and legitimacy of the proposed law.

From June 26 to 28, 2025, scholars from across Europe and beyond gathered at Vilnius University’s Old Town Campus for the 10^th Biennial Conference of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE). Marking the society’s 20^th anniversary, this milestone event explored the theme “Esotericism and Rationality”, challenging long-held assumptions about the boundaries between mystical thought and intellectual rigor.


Since January 2024, the Union Nationale des Associations de Défense des Familles et de l'Individu (UNADFI) has been receiving a grant of 150,000 euros, courtesy of MIVILUDES. Officially, this public boon is supposed to fund a project to “digitize and share documentation” of the association, which is presented as a “heritage”. But upon closer inspection, the operation looks more like budget manipulation, technocratic window dressing, and accounting that lacks transparency.

by Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF) — Following the public denunciation of several sentences of anti-cult groups by French courts, one of them claims to be a victim of undue judicial harassment by cults or ‘their friends’ and also claims that its mission to warn against cults is supported by the European Parliament. This is false. A quick glance at the provided references of its sources shows that the European Parliament is silent on this subject.

The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, formerly known as the Church of Unification, was founded in Korea in 1954 by the religious leader Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon, but has experienced substantial growth, especially in 1958 after its founding in Japan. Although on November 27, 2020, the Hiroshima High Court convicted five people for kidnapping and imprisoning a married couple with the purpose of de-converting them so as to force them to leave the Unification Church, by implicitly recognizing their inalienable right to their religious faith ...

The saga of the MIVILUDES (Mission Interministerielle de Vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectarie) continues. Despite being ‘slapped down’ by the Paris Administrative Court, which ordered MIVILUDES in a ruling on 21 February 2025 to correct its publications due to ‘inaccurate or unverified information’, on 8 April 2025 – only a month and a half later – it published its new annual report in line with its modus operandi of stuffing the reported news with inaccurate or unverified information.

In the wake of the ongoing anti-cult campaigns featuring so-called “defectors” – or apostates – we repost the article “The Defector's Syndrome” signed by FOB counsel Fabrizio d'Agostini. The occasion comes to us from Zona Bianca, the TV program that is treating the issue of religious minorities with a questionable approach. In fact, the narration of the life of and in the targeted religious communities (Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.

On December 2, 2024, UNADFI was condemned by the Marseille Magistrates’ Court, and forced to publish CAPLC’s right of reply on its website within 48 hours, subject to a penalty of 50 euros per day of delay. Convinced it could escape the law, UNADFI appealed in summary proceedings to obtain suspension of the decision. This action was curtly dismissed by the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal.

France's state grants funded with taxpayers’ money said to be misused by anti-cult groups stigmatizing and inciting hostility against some religious or belief groups and their members. In the framework of its 2023 Call for Projects, MIVILUDES (Interministerial Mission of Vigilance and Combat against Cultic Deviances) generously allocated a state subsidy of 150,000 EUR to CAFFES (Family Support Center Facing Cultic Control). This represents a considerable, if not completely disproportionate, grant for a small association with 90% of its annual budget funded with public money.

CAP Liberté de conscience (09.12.2024) — On December 2, 2024, the Marseille Magistrates’ Court ordered UNADFI (Union Nationale des Associations de Défense des Familles et de l’Individu) to publish a right of reply from CAP Liberté de Conscience on its website within 48 hours, subject to a penalty of 50 euros per day of delay. UNADFI had argued that its status as an organization of public utility meant that the law did not apply to it but the judge ruled that UNADFI was not above the law.

One year ago, on November 28, 2023, a French SWAT team raided several houses and appartments where yoga practitioners, members of MISA yoga school in  Romania, had gathered for their spiritual retreats.  A few days earlier, on November 15 2023, Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, Minister Delegate for Citizenship and City Development of the French government and overseer of MIVILUDES, lodged a bill aimes to ‘reinforce the fight against sectarian drifts' prompted by a specious increase in “saisines” (dubious and controversial reports) received by the MIVILUDES.

by Alessandro Amicarelli and Massimo Introvigne — Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony (in short, Shincheonji) is a South Korean Christian new religious movement that has frequently suffered slander and discrimination at home and abroad. Its members have even been submitted to the criminal practice of deprogramming, and two of them died during violent deprogramming attempts.

Despite being a blatant violation of Directive 2014/24/EU of 16 February 2014, almost 30 years later, the ‘Sects Filter’ is still active in Germany. Professor Massimo Introvigne had already highlighted this serious violation in 2021. The sect filter was invented by an anti-cultist and former MP employed by the City-State of Hamburg as a professional anti-Scientology “expert,” Ursula Caberta, in 1995.

60 years after the start of the case that would lead to his conviction for plagio

by Alessandro Amicarelli — October 12, 2024 marks the 60th anniversary of a tragic event for the Italian democracy. On that date the Aldo Braibanti case, a judicial disgrace in a republican, democratic and anti-fascist Italy, began. All the more so because the defendant on trial would shortly be a young philosophy graduate, formerly on the Italian Communist Party's central committee, formerly a partisan, accused of using plagio, the legal guise of brainwashing, to allegedly obtain sexual favors from younger boys.

Bitter Winter reports the gruesome story of the release of personal data of Chinese asylum seekers who are members of the Church of Almighty God. Whatever one's stance there may be about minority religious groups, which anti-cult and against-cult organizations continue to call cults and abusive sects – or even specifically towards this Chinese community, the State should ensure the utmost secrecy and protection of the data of asylum seekers.

by Fabrizio d’Agostini — Five association acronyms that state in their very name that their purpose is the defense of the victims of psychological abuses, have recently re-proposed, in a letter sent to some authorities, an “old” moan from the 1970s (mind war in the USA) ...

On October 8^th 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.

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.

"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.

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.