Testimony by
The Reverend N. J. L'Heureux, Jr.
Executive Director, Queens Federation of Churches
Moderator, Committee on Religious Liberty of the
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
June 14, 2000

House International Relations Committee:
The Treatment of Religious Minorities in Western Europe

(cont...)

Earlier this year, the Rapporteur of the parliamentary commission was convicted of defamation for labeling the anthroposophy movement a sect and his investigatory methods were denounced by a Paris court as “not serious.” In contrast to the broad and sensational coverage of the original report in the French media, the court’s finding was reported cursorily in the press, and the blacklist of 173 movements continues to circulate and is used to justify fresh acts of intolerance in both the public and private sectors.

In March of this year, I was a member of an expert panel at a public hearing in Paris intended to provide members of minority faiths with a forum to describe the discrimination they have been subjected to. This was a private, non-governmental hearing, and it drew an attendance of more than 300 people from 38 religious movements. I and the other panel members were shocked at what we heard, because it was evident that these individuals were being targeted solely because of their religious beliefs. Twenty-four witnesses from thirteen different religious organizations testified to a range of abuses that I can only touch on today. A member of the Soka Gakkai Buddhist movement told how members of his religion had experienced discrimination in searching for employment, discrimination at work, and even an attempt at murder. Damaged careers and business prospects (as the singer chosen to represent France in the Eurovision song contest whose album contract was then canceled because of her religion) and families torn apart (as the children taken from their parents on suspicion of abuses which turned out to be wholly false) were the substance of that hearing. And all these incidents of discrimination were based on nothing but prejudice and ignorance because of the individual’s membership in a minority faith.

Since then, hearings of this kind have been held in Marseille, Lille, Lyon, Rennes and Auxerre, each attracting a range of testimonies from diverse movements, bearing unfortunate witness to the rise of governmental religious persecution in France.

After returning to the United States, I felt it necessary to bring the situation to the attention of a wider audience and I sought to place a series of paid advertisements in French newspapers in the form of Open Letters to senior French politicians. The Open Letters focused attention on the violations of European and international human rights standards caused by MILS and were signed by 52 religious and human rights leaders, mostly American. I have attached copies of the Open Letters to my testimony and I request that they be included in the record.

The first Open Letter, to the French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, ran in the International Herald Tribune on March 23. We then attempted to place the second and third Open Letters in French newspapers. Four major national newspapers – Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libration and L’Express – refused to publish them. Only the national paper France Soir agreed to run them, and on April 20, published our Open Letter to the President of France, Jacques Chirac. It cited condemnations of religious intolerance in France by the U.S. State Department and the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation and noted that MILS discriminatory targeting of a range of minority faiths violates European and international human rights laws.