It is with deep sorrow that we learn that Don Aldo Natale Terrin, a distinguished member of FOB's Scientific Committee, passed away on the evening of Tuesday, 9 January 2024.

Don Aldo Natale Terrin, priest of the Diocese of Padua, was born in Sandon on 23 December 1941 and was ordained to the priesthood on 8 July 1965. He was appointed as a teacher at the Minor Seminary of Thiene for secondary school. In the following months he also became a cooperator during the festivities in Roana (February-August 1966) and in Montegalda (August 1966-October 1967).

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 17^th International Conference on Daoist Studies "Daoist Ways of Enhancing Life: I Ching, Feng Shui, and Personal Cultivation" is being held in Taiwan at Weixin Shengjjao Branch Temple between 1-5 January 2024.

Local and international scholars are representing different organizations at this important 5-day study conference.

The year 2023 ends with a good news for the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses in Belgium. The Belgian Supreme Court definitively puts an end to the Ghent case, reaffirming the legitimacy of the practice, adopted by Jehovah's Witnesses and, essentially, by all religions and human associational groups, political or otherwise, of severing relations with those who have disaffiliated or been expelled from the congregation.

The New Life Church has been permanently disbanded. The latest appeals by the pastor did not deter the judges from doing so.

Pastor Vyacheslav Goncharenko no longer has a church. Last Monday, Belarus’ Supreme Court ruled that his church “New Life” is extremist and must be closed. The ruling concludes a long legal battle between the church and Aleksandr Lukashenko’s regime.

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.

Alessandro Amicarelli, chairman of the European Federation for Freedom of Belief (FOB) and trustee of All Faiths Network UK, together with Massimo Introvigne, director in charge of Bitter Winter (online paper on Human Rights in China and the world), Rosita Soryte, director of the Observatory on the Religious Freedom of Refugees (ORLIR) and a member of the Scientific Committee of FOB, Eric Roux, president of the Union of the Churches of Scientology in France and Peter Zoherer, executive director of the Forum for Religious Freedom, Europe (FOREF Europe) ...

On 10 December 1948, at the third session of the United Nations General Assembly held in Paris, Resolution No. 219077A adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Declaration, we publish an article by lawyer Fabrizio d'Agostini, founding member of FOB.

There’s no doubt that the freedom of dress is a characteristic trait, and actually the most obvious, of personal identity, which manifests as the “right to be oneself”.

In 2001, France enacted the infamous anti-cult About-Picard law. Now, 22 years later, the French Minister Sabrina Agresti Roubache, who oversees the anti-cult agency MIVILUDES, is trying to change the About-Picard law for the worse.

Washington, DC – On Novembre 20, 2023  the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released the following new report: Religious Garb Restrictions and International Human Rights Law – This report analyzes how countries impermissibly restrict individuals’ freedom to wear garb expressing or in accordance with their religion or belief.

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.

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.

by Bitter Winter — Twelve NGOs, representing a who’s who of religious liberty advocacy throughout the world, protest the Japanese government’s actions.

Although Russia is already engaged in a war that threatens to escalate into an apocalyptic nuclear conflict, the war on religious minorities also continues undaunted. Using questionable, if not downright illiberal, motives, they are pointed at as extremist organisations dangerous to the Russian population and culture. All this despite repeated condemnations by the ECHR.

by Steno Sari — Stereotypes have always helped us in classifying the world around us. Like compasses, they orient us in a reality that is otherwise too big for us, which is thus tamed and subdivided, with little subtlety, into Manichaean, clear-cut alignments between good and bad, civilised and uncivilised, inside and outside, near and far.

From Spain a small step for the Christian community of Jehovah's Witnesses, but a big step for freedom of belief in Europe and around the world. While there are still, unfortunately, numerous violations of freedom of belief and religion globally, timely denounced with diligence by the USCIRF, the Spanish government has given a clear indication of which path to follow for a peaceful and civilized coexistence. The hope is that other governments will follow its example.

by Francesco Alicino — In the Italian Constitution the regulation of relations between the State and religions hinges on the principle of equality, which implies respect for the right to difference (equality in difference). A principle and a right that is often functional to the autonomous subjectivity of individual confessional organizations (Art. 8, c. 2, Const.), adhering to which an individual can develop his or her personality (Art. 2 and 3 Const.), religiously oriented.

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.