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.
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.
Washington, DC – The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) condemns the persistent egregious violations of religious freedom in Iran. This month, Iranian authorities executed a 20-year-old Jewish man, Arvin Ghahremani. He was sentenced to death after reportedly killing a Muslim man in self-defense. His irregular judicial proceedings and denial of alternate recompense were both rooted in his identity as a Jew.
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.
The measure is part of China‘s attempts to enforce ’patriotic education’ among Tibetan students.
By RFA Tibetan — Hundreds of young Tibetan Buddhist monks from Kirti Monastery who were forcibly transferred in September to government-run boarding schools in Sichuan province’s Ngaba county, are being held in “prison-like conditions” in the schools, two sources from the region said.
by Jiang Tao — Since the CCP initiated a three-year “general battle” in 2019 targeting The Church of Almighty God (CAG), its members have endured escalating persecution, marked by a substantial increase in arrests and convictions. The situation in Guangdong Province has been particularly severe, according to church members and court records “Bitter Winter” has had access to through an insider source.
Dmytro Zelinsky, a 45-year-old Seventh-day Adventist, is serving 3 years in prison for refusing to engage in military mobilization as it conflicts with the tenets of his faith. On June 5, 2023, Judge Tetyana Klim of the Kremenets District Court in the Ternopil region had acquitted him on the basis of Article 35 of the Ukrainian Constitution, which provides, “If the performance of military duty contradicts a citizen's religious beliefs, the performance of this duty shall be replaced by alternative (non-military) service.”
We are glad to announce the release of a new book Socio-Anthropological Approaches to Religion: Environmental Hope, co-edited by David W. Kim, a Professor at the Australian National University and Kookmin University, Seoul, and also a member of our Scientific Committee, with Duncan Wright, an Associate Professor at the Australian National University’s School of Archaeology and Anthropology.
by Juan Sanchez Gil (The European Times) — In a passionate and reflective speech delivered today (10 October 2024) at the European Parliament during the “how to stop the rise of religious intolerance in Europe” debate, Mr. Margaritis Schinas, Vice President of the European Commission, addressed the importance of religious freedom, tolerance, and the European way of life. His speech, rich in both historical context and forward-looking vision, called for a united European response to religious intolerance while affirming the values that define Europe today.
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 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.
This paper was presented at the webinar “After the August 2 Taichung Decision on the Tai Ji Men Case: Can the Law Become a Tool of Violence?” co-organized by CESNUR and Human Rights Without Frontiers on August 22, 2024, United Nations International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief.
The case of the raid on 28 November 2023 by a SWAT team (Special Weapons Assault Team) on a number of houses and flats where yoga practitioners linked to the MISA yoga school in Romania were gathering for their spiritual retreats had already been covered in this article of 16 April. Now Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers, traces the incident by analysing the testimonies of 20 unfortunate people who suffered the indignity of the French police raid.
Washington, DC — On August 7, 2024 the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) today released the following new report: Afghanistan Country Update - This country update describes current religious freedom conditions under de facto Taliban authorities, including the introduction and enforcement of strict religious edicts.
Another ruling in favor of the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, this time by the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario, Canada, which refutes the thesis dear to the anti-cultists that in the Jehovah's Witnesses – as in other religious minorities – the commission of crimes is implicit, to the point of making them 'systemic'. The Canadian court rightly pointed out that, in the case at hand, the responsibility for the alleged crimes is personal.
The incidents of intolerance against the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL), a New Islamic Religious Movement opposed in Muslim-majority countries such as Azerbaijan and Turkey, but also in unsuspected human rights champions such as Sweden, continue. Human Rights Without Frontiers' director Willy Fautré reports in an article reproduced below that in Azerbaijan there have been arrests among AROPL worshippers for being guilty of peacefully expressing their faith in public.
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.
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.
