The Ukrainian National Center Of Religious Safety And Help To Victims Of Destructive Cults Organisation “Dialogue” a FECRIS correspondent in Ukraine, has launched a campaign against Falun Gong practitioners. It has published the following article on its website under the title “The Falun Gong sect recruits Kherson residents under the guise of an art exhibition”:
Like other pro-Russian and Russian Orthodox extremists, Dvorkin discredited the Maidan movement, saying that the Acting President, Alexander Tourtchynov was a Baptist – which is true -, his Prime Minister Arseni Yatseniuk is a Scientologist his sister chairs a major scientologist organization in the USA – both accusations spread by Interfax-Religion, a Russian press agency, and checked as false by Human Rights Without Frontiers (**).
Are the media campaign and the legislative initiatives targeting some religious movements the product of an accurate and scientific analysis? Or, instead, are there special interests taking undue advantage from State structures for questionable purposes? And the State lends itself and contributes to amplify this alarm with questionable, to say the least, initiatives.
The recommendations of French MP Rudy Salles which would have had the effect of exporting French anti-religious policies to the 47 Member States of the Council of Europe has not been adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
It’s not often that Jehovah’s Witnesses, secularists and humanists find themselves on the same side, and rejoicing for the same reason, but this seems to be one such moment.
Co-founder of the Freedom Rights Project; President of the Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe; former Executive Director of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights
I appreciate this opportunity to speak in the framework of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
As I understand it, the main role of the Parliamentary Assembly is to undertake investigations and make recommendations to the member states of the Council of Europe.
FECRIS (Federation of Centers of Research and Information on Cults and Sects) held its annual gathering on March 24, 2014 in Brussels. As usual, the meeting was shrouded in secrecy and only open to affiliated member organizations and “friendly” individuals. The existence of the meeting and in particular its agenda and venue was even kept off their official Website until a few days ago. This is the more surprising since the meeting was held inside the Belgian Parliament (“The Palace of the Nation”) in the “Salle des Congrès”.
