FRANCE
Religious Minorities stigmatized as "mutating viruses" and "pathology of belief"
CAPLC - HRWF (07.10.2010) - www.hrwf.net - Created over ten years ago to fight against discrimination of religious or belief minorities in France, the Coordination of Associations and Individuals for Freedom of Conscience which I am representing wants to express its strongest disapproval concerning the statement made on 26 November 2009 by the French Secretary of State for Justice, Jean-Marie Bockel, about minorities of religion or belief derogatorily labelled as "sectarian".
According to him the growing quest of personal fulfilment and the emergence of unusual religious syncretism are significant of the sectarian phenomenon which "can be analyzed as pathology of belief on a background of individuation and deregulation of belief."
This public statement made in 2009 at the first national conference of the Inter-Ministerial Mission of Fight and Vigilance against Sectarian Deviances (MIVILUDES) is still posted on the official site of the Ministry of Justice to this day. For the French authorities, it is necessary to repress minorities of belief they consider as deviant and to attempt to regulate beliefs.
The Secretary of State added that "sectarian deviances" are "comparable to mutating viruses which spread in often insidious ways the poison of manipulation of human behaviours and spirits". We understand that viruses as such should be eliminated.
In spite of the French government's assertions to the OSCE and the United Nations that MIVILUDES does not take in consideration the content of beliefs, the fact is that the main criterion retained by MIVILUDES in its 2008 Report to characterize mental manipulation is that "one or more people start to believe in certain ideas which differ from the ideas generally accepted by society".
