FRANCE:
DISCRIMINATORY AND REPRESSIVE LEGISLATION
TO BAN TARGETED RELIGIOUS MINORITIES

Proposed Draconian Measures (cont...)

Articles Two through Five create corporate criminal liability for corporations or associations for penal offenses referred to in Article One in instances where only individual liability previously existed for such offenses. Article Two provides that the legal entity may be sentenced to various penalties such as a fine and the prohibition of the activity in the course of which or as a result of which the offense was committed. Article Two thus provides a separate means other than dissolution for a court to prohibit a minority religious organization’s activities.

Article Six makes it a criminal offense (with a three-year prison term and a FF 300,000 fine for first offenders and a five-year prison term and a FF 500,000 fine for repeat offenders) for any person to participate in the reconstitution of a dissolved corporation or association. Article Seven calls for the renewed dissolution of a reconstituted and previously dissolved entity. These articles raise the specter of public authorities arresting and imprisoning leaders and members of targeted organizations if they continue to practice and to profess their faith, proselytize or hold religious convocations after their group has been dissolved.

Article Eight local mayors of cities and, in Paris, the Chief of Police are empowered to forbid the establishment of any offices, seat, church, advertisement or advertising activity by targeted religious minority groups within 200 meters from a hospital, a retirement house, a public or private institution of prevention, curing or caring, or any school with students (presumably) 18 years or younger. If this interdiction is violated, the sentence is two years’ imprisonment and a FF 200,000 fine, and the corporation or association itself is subject to conviction. Targeted groups may also be denied building permits or licenses by cities.

Thus, a targeted organization arbitrarily deemed to be a “sectarian group” by a mayor or the Paris Chief of Police may be denied a permit to open a house of worship or forced to close a house of worship under the threat of severe criminal penalties. Such restrictions flagrantly violate the right to religious freedom under Article 9 of the European Convention.

When a fundamental freedom such as freedom of religion is at issue, the European Court of Human Rights has not hesitated to ensure equality of treatment and has viewed attempts to justify different treatment as simply “unacceptable.” No exception applies justifying any distinction because it happens to concern specialized areas of law. As the European Court of Human Rights stated in Mannousakkis and Others v. Greece, (1996) 23 EHRR 387, even seemingly innocuous administrative action restricting the rights of minority religions operates as a “lethal weapon against the right to freedom of religion.”

Article Nine of the law prohibits “promotion or propaganda intended for young people” (these terms are not defined) by an association or group deemed to fall under Article One. Criminal penalties for such promotion consist of a FF 50,000 fine, applicable to both individuals and associations. As none of these terms are even defined adherents to new or minority religions targeted by public authorities would be subject to arrest and prosecution without any understanding of the scope and meaning of this draconian provision.

The vague nature and sweeping scope of this Article will chill and severely infringe on both freedom of religion and freedom of expression rights. Under this provision, no radio, television, internet, leafleting or door to door evangelism by targeted groups would be possible since these methods of sharing the beliefs and practices of a group’s faith might reach a young person.

Moreover, the legislation, as written could even be selectively enforced to subject parents to the threat of arrest and conviction for providing information regarding their religious beliefs to their children or to subject religious educational organizations and officials and teachers in these organizations to the threat of arrest and conviction for providing children of parishioners with information regarding the religion’s beliefs. Such a law clearly contravenes human rights obligations which prohibit subjecting a person “to coercion which would impair his freedom to adopt a religion or belief of his choice” and requires the State to respect the liberty of parents “to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions”. Articles Ten and Eleven purport to create the new crime of “mental manipulation.” This term is defined as any activity or activities “with the goal or the effect to create or to exploit the state of mental or physical dependence of people who are participating in the group’s activities and to infringe human rights and fundamental liberties; to exert repeated pressure in order to create or exploit this state of dependence and to drive the person, against his will or not, to an act or an abstention with is heavily prejudicial.” The penalty for “mental manipulation” is two years’ imprisonment and a fine of FF 200,000. If the victim is particularly weak due to age, illness, or other conditions, the penalty is five years’ imprisonment and FF 500,000. This crime applies to corporations and associations as well as to individuals.