TRAMPLING CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
(cont...)

COMPARISON 6:

United Nations:

U.N. Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance:

“The term ‘sect’ seems to have a pejorative connotation. A sect is considered to be different from a religion, and thus not entitled to the same protection. This kind of approach is indicative of a propensity to lump things together, to discriminate and to exclude, which is hard to justify and harder still to excuse, so injurious is it to religious freedom.”

Statements:

Jean Pierre Brard, vice president of the 1996 Parliamentary Commission on Sects:

“Our texts speak about sects but it is not yet defined clearly, but today we come close to it very fast.” (France TV 3, May 6, 2001.)

Roger Ikor, founder of the “Center of Documentation, Education and Action against Mental Manipulation (CCMM)”, a government-funded organization of which Alain Vivien is former president:

“If we listened to ourselves, we would put an end to all this balderdash, from cults, but also from the great religions.” (Les cahiers rationalistes, December 1980, No. 364.)

“Yes, there is no difference of nature, or rather of principle, between a cult and a religion; there is only a difference of degree and size.” (Les cahiers rationalistes, December 1980, No. 364.)

COMPARISON 7:

European Convention on Human Rights:

European Court of Human Rights, in “Mannousakis v. Greece”:

“The right to freedom of religion as guaranteed under the [European] Convention [on Human Rights] excludes any discretion on the part of the state to determine whether religious beliefs or the means used to express such beliefs are legitimate.”

Statements:

Roger Ikor, founder of the government-funded CCMM:

“We must hit, destroy these cults which swarm and feed on our decay. If enough people ransack cults’ premises, they [the public authorities] will probably do something.” (Le Matin, January 26, 1981.)

Alain Vivien, president of MILS:

“In the United States, freedoms are crazy. In the name of the First Amendment of the American Constitution which forbids legislation on religious matters, one can say and do anything.” (Agence France Presse, June 14, 1999)

COMPARISON 8:

European Convention on Human Rights:

European Court of Human Rights:

“According to Article 9, freedom to manifest one’s religion is not only exercisable in community with others, “in public” and within the circle of those whose faith one shares, but can also be asserted “alone” and “in private”; furthermore, it includes in principle the right to try to convince one’s neighbour, for example through “teaching”, failing which, moreover, “freedom to change [one’s] religion of belief”, enshrined in Article 9, would be likely a dead letter.” (Kokkinakis v. Greece, May 1993).

Statement:

Dr. Jean-Marie Abgrall, psychiatrist, advisor to the “Interministerial Mission to Combat Sects”:

“If one of my relatives was ensnared in a cult, I think I would do the same as RAMBO: I would take a machine gun, go to inside the cult, grab my relative, take him with me and kill all those who would try to stop me from getting him....” (Program recorded by Pearl River Entertainment, 1995).

Roger Ikor, founder of the government-funded CCMM:

“If you admit that we have to fight them [sects] because they are harmful, then they have to be fought with determination, as one fights a dangerous enemy on a battlefield, without letting an excess of scruples paralyze you with continuous wonderings about principles. The stake is too high to authorize weakness and indulgence. And the imperatives of this fight are to be placed high enough in the hierarchy of values, sometimes even above respect of freedom, we are on the plane of actions, not of thoughts only.” (“I Lodge A Complaint”, page 98.)