FECRIS

There are signs that “traditional” anti-cultists are ready to enroll even the most lunatic “New Age” figures in their crusade.

In this article, Rosita Šorytė explores the connection between the new anti-cult New Age movements and the conventional anti-cult movements that mostly orbit in the FECRIS galaxy, as demonstrated by Luigi Corvaglia's explicit appreciation of Wahid Azal's remarks, in perfect line with the motto “the enemies of my enemies are my friends”.

In this series of articles, Rosita Šorytė will examine two examples of “New Age anti-cultism” pertinent to AROPL. She will also explore whether New Age anti-cultism will be recognized as a legitimate component of the global anti-cult movement and whether it will benefit from the efforts of its coordinating agencies. Rosita Šorytė, member of FOB’ Scientific Committee, joined in 1992 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, and worked for 25 years as a diplomat, inter alia at the UNESCO in Paris and the United Nations in New York.

by Alessandro Amicarelli — Luigi Corvaglia, the self-styled anti-cult crusader and FECRIS board member, has once again graced the digital pages of “AgoraVox”—that Italian bastion of citizen journalism where anyone with a keyboard and a grievance can play pundit. But this time, his article didn’t just linger in the depths of AgoraVox’s volunteer-driven archives. It was swiftly picked up and republished by the China Anti-Xie-Jiao Association ...

In Italy, but unfortunately not only there, there is an ongoing emergency: a virus that was thought to have been permanently eradicated back in the early 1980s has made a comeback. It is again circulating and being transmitted by communicating, exchanging ideas, changing one's point of view and embracing new life experiences. It is the “virus of mental manipulation”. It seems that the only vaccine that can stop this alarming phenomenon is a law to control and limit the freedom to change one's opinion about someone or something.

by Alessandro Amicarelli — In its ruling of 16 June 2025 in civil case no. 7879/2023, Section II of the Florence Tribunal ruled against the Italian Association of Victims of Cults (AIVS) for actions carried out online targeting the Soka Gakkai Buddhist Institute, based in Florence.  

What led to this ruling?

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.

We are approaching the 8^th anniversary of the banning of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia 7 years ago, on 20 April 2017, actively advocated by the then FECRIS vice-president Aleksandr Dvorkin, an Orthodox ex-priest, lecturer in sect history and ‘sect expert’ for the Russian Ministry of Justice, thus accustomed to preaching and sermons both in church and university classrooms and in courtrooms. This year, with the approach of Easter, which in Hebrew means ‘passage’ (pesah), we witness Dvorkin's transition from friend of the FECRIS to enemy of it, as documented in the following article by Bitter Winter.

The anti-cult government agency MIVILUDES (Mission Interministérielle de Vigilance et de Lutte contre les Dérives Sectaires) received another 'slap in the face' from none other than its home court, the Paris Administrative Court, which certified MIVILUDES' malfeasance in packaging and spreading false news on religious minorities - in this case, the Jehovah's Witnesses - contemptuously describing them as 'cults' and attributing to them deviant sectarian behaviours that (...)

"The [Orthodox] Church does not appeals for heretics, members of cults or dissidents to be subjected to prosecution. However, the decision to ban Jehovah's Witnesses is to be considered a positive act in the fight against the spread of cultic ideas, which have nothing in common with Christianity." These were the words with which Metropolitan Ilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Council for External Affairs of the Russian Church, greeted the banning of Jehovah's Witnesses occurred in Russia 7 years ago, on April 20, 2017.

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).

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.

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.

FECRIS stands for European Federation of Centers of Research and Information on Cults and Sects, is based in France (Marseille). It is funded handsomely by the French government, but operates throughout Europe and also in various non-European nations. But do not be fooled, the majority of non-French groups and associations that have joined FECRIS are very small groups, sometimes consisting of one or two individuals sometimes existing only on paper.

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 (...)

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.

Soon the 35^th anniversary will recur, of a reprehensible happening that to date remained totally unpunished from a judicial standpoint, but now – from a moral perspective – would be universally condemned by anyone who got acquainted with it, as well as its mean instigators, perpetrators, accomplices and cover-up henchmen.

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.

Far from endorsing any political stance on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, aware of the old adage that warns that "between the two quarrels there is always a third who enjoys", we publish this article taken from The European Times by Jan Leonid Bornstein, which illustrates the role of the anti-cult movement in fomenting intolerance and division between religions, cultures and peoples.

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.

by Massimo Introvigne — On November 27, 2020, FECRIS, the European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Cults and Sects, an umbrella organization for anti-cult movements in Europe and beyond, significantly funded by the French government, lost a landmark case at the District Court of Hamburg, in Germany, where it was found guilty of 18 counts of untrue factual allegations against the Jehovah’s Witnesses. On May 24, 2021, Bitter Winter published a commentary of the decision. On May 30, 2021, i.e., six days after Bitter Winter’s article (and six months after the decision, proving that it was indeed answering Bitter Winter, and without our article it would never have commented the judgement in public), FECRIS published a press release about the case.