Hate Speech

by Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers (Brussels) — In the last few months, a number of mainline British media, including the BBC, published sensational reports gravely stigmatizing the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light whose members were arrested and imprisoned as “heretics” in over a dozen Muslim majority countries and were defended by the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Without Frontiers and other NGOs.

How far can the hatred generated by intolerance towards religious minorities go? The article of which we repropose here below some excerpts provides an eloquent answer. In this case to pay the costs of the murderous hatred of ignorant Muslim crowds are faithful Hindus and Christians, i.e. the faithful of two of the major religions on Earth, in the Islamic world, however, they are often in the minority.

An OSCE report shows that graffiti, vandalism and arson attacks against churches are some of the more common crimes. There are 70% more cases reported than in 2019. The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has launched its Hate Crime Data 2020 on 16 November, the International Day for Tolerance. The ODIHR collects data from states, governments statistics, civil society, international organisations and UNHCR and OSCE missions.

In the past 80 years many have asked themselves: how could this happen? The vast majority of German citizens hated the Jews, persecuted them or were conscious accomplices of such persecution. What made it possible? What drove almost an entire population, with a few exceptions, too few, to commit unimaginable cruelties? Who convinced them and how?

The report that our French partner CAP Liberté de Conscience presented to the UN Human Rights Council recommending that the state funding of anti-cult associations, in particular the French association FECRIS, be stopped, has triggered a series of articles revealing the excesses of anti-cults. Today we publish FECRIS and affiliates: Defamation is in their DNA, an article by Willy Fautré, director and co-founder of Human Rights Withou Fronties International, which lists a series of convictions collected by FECRIS in various European courts. We do not add anything more and leave it to the reader to get a personal idea of these "champions" of the alleged victims of the equally alleged "cults" (an ambiguous term that lends itself well to the hate campaigns of anti-cults).

The recent articles published on this site show a never dormant and ill-concealed intolerant regurgitation towards the beliefs of others. Freedom of belief is protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and by subsequent similar declarations, but in the light of the facts this right requires constant and further commitment, so that it is effectively recognized and respected as an inalienable right. Below we publish an article by professor Massimo Introvigne, internationally renowned sociologist of religions, who gives an example of how easy it is to fall into intolerance and incitement to hatred.

Eleven NGOs and academic research centers specialized in human rights and religious liberty, two of them with special consultative status at the United Nations’ Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) wrote on October 28, 2020 to Disney CEO Bob Chapek, protesting an episode on A&E’s History Channel, part of its program “America’s Book of Secrets,” entitled “Cults, Hate Groups, and Secret Societies.” Disney is the co-owner of the A&E Networks, which in turn owns the History Channel.

Our organisation, the European Federation for Freedom of Belief (FOB) has been attending the Human Dimension Implementation Meetings for the last 5 years, and we are thankful to the OSCE for the space given to the civil society. As a secular entity, member of the International Religious Freedom Movement, we constantly cooperate with other like-minded organisations, both secular and faith based ones, and regularly carry out a constructive dialogue with the public bodies and representatives in different countries.

We are introducing and relaying this interesting, well-specified article from Epoch Times, which tells about a recent interview with professor Massimo Introvigne, one of the most important scholars of religion in the world, regarding the ongoing persecution against religious minorities in the Chinese Popular Republic on the part of the ruling Communist Party.