Created over ten years ago to fight against discrimination of minorities of religion or belief in France, the European Coordination for Freedom of Conscience which I represent wishes to highlight the French policy of stigmatization of parent members of religious minorities and their children.
OSCE Human Dimension Freedom of religion or belief 1st October 2012
« Sects » and children : Miviludes 2009 report
OSCE Human Dimension Freedom of religion or belief 1st October 2012
FRANCE : “Sects” and children: the official figures
But this « About-Picard » law, named after its authors, contravenes the Council of Europe’s Recommendation 1412 in which it considered that major legislation on sects was undesirable on the grounds that such legislation might well interfere with the freedom of conscience and religion guaranteed by Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights as well as harm traditional religions.
According to this guide, a child born in a family in which the parents are followers of a religious minority, is immersed in their beliefs, which for MIVILUDES can be analyzed as a symbolic confinement in the family. For MIVILUDES, the world of the grown-ups imposes itself to the child as a reference in terms of behaviour, values, ideas and beliefs. Under constant construction, the future identity of the child will thus be deeply marked according to MIVILUDES by the beliefs of his parents.
CAP LC wishes to set the record straight regarding discrimination of minority belief groups in France. We also wish to address the response made in February 2010 by the French government to the request of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief for updated information following her 2005 measures taken to implement them” in the event similar representations were made by the French government to ODIHR.
With a whiff of Committee of Public Salvation which used to organise State repression in the name of “public salvation” and “general safety” during the troubled times of the French Revolution, the Interministerial Mission of Watch and Fight against Sectarian Deviations, headed by its new President Georges Fenech, organises the repression of groups it considers as “deviating” in the name of public interest.
