Ladies and gentlemen: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. I will begin by describing the background to the alarming religious intolerance existing in France today. I will then give specific examples of discrimination, and even persecution, that members of my religion, and indeed, a wide range of faiths are experiencing.
France is the only western European nation to have created a government panel, at cabinet level, unabashedly entitled the "Interministerial Mission to Combat ["lutte"] Sects." Known by the acronym of MILS, the panel is headed by Alain Vivien, a French official whose role in modern France is, in a sense, not unlike that of a medieval despot whose arbitrary edicts determined life or death for the religiously devoted. In the end, all religions are targeted by his intolerance.
In addition to being president of MILS, a government body, M. Vivien is himself the president of one such French anti-religious group – known as CCMM. In 1993, he was one of the main speakers at a conference in Barcelona, Spain, co-sponsored by the American Cult Awareness Network, or CAN. Vivien maintained his relationship with CAN until that organization became defunct after being found liable in a multi-million dollar judgement. CAN and one of its deprogrammers had abducted and abused a Pentecostal Christian in an effort to force him to abandon his religion. That judgement against CAN was upheld all the way to the Supreme Court. It effectively ended, in the United States, the criminal practice of deprogramming.
Despite his affiliation with the American anti-religious movement, M. Vivien is in fact unashamedly anti-American. In June last year, he told the French news agency, Agence France Presse:
"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."
Soon after being appointed president of MILS in 1998, he told the Protestant newspaper Reforme:
"[religion] should be the very field legislators should regulate."
Thanks to the First Amendment, the anti-religious movement in this country has never acquired influence with the U.S. government. That is unfortunately not true in France. In 1998, a Swedish government commission concluded that "In France, the state has on the whole made common cause with the anti-cult movement."
Religious freedom in France suffered a serious decline following a 1996 parliamentary commission Report. The Report produced a virtual blacklist of 173 so-called "sects", among them Baptists, Mormons, Seventh-Day Adventists and Scientologists. Expert scholarship was not consulted by the members of the Commission, and they relied on propaganda and false rumors provided by the Renseignements Generaux, the French intelligence police. The RG, in turn, had received its information from the French anti-religious movement.
The U.S. State Department's Report on International Religious Freedom, published last September, criticized the parliamentary commission's report on the grounds that, "[it] was prepared without the benefit of full and complete hearings regarding the groups identified on the list. Groups were not told why they were placed on the list, and, because the document exists as a commission report to the National Assembly, there is no mechanism for changing or amending the list short of a new National Assembly Commission inquiry and report." The State Department noted that following publication of the Report, "the ensuing publicity contributed to an atmosphere of intolerance and bias against minority religions."
The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, one of the world's leading human rights organizations, put the situation even more strongly, condemning "a manifold pattern of virtual persecution."
This March, my Church organized a public hearing in Paris at which members of minority religions described to an expert panel of religious leaders and academics specific instances of discrimination they had experienced in France.
We decided to hold this hearing because there was no forum available to members of minority religions to communicate their experiences, and shocking incidents of discrimination were going unreported.
More than 300 members of 38 different religious movements attended. Out of that hearing arose an alliance of minority faiths under the name: "The Coalition Against the New Inquisition". This Coalition has now held similar public hearings in Lyon, Marseilles, Rennes and Auxerres. The testimonies from those who are suffering for their religious beliefs are extremely distressing. I would like to share a few of them with you.
To preserve the spontaneity of these accounts, I will relate them as faithfully as possible to the original, modified by translation and abbreviation.
The first comes from a young woman who in March 1999 was chosen out of more than 700 candidates to represent France in the prestigious Eurovision Song Contest in Jerusalem. She describes what happened next:
"Two days after the election, the local paper from Perpignan where I was born wrote that I belong to the Raól cult. More than 100 media reported this information, describing it as a scandal for the Eurovision Song Contest and stating that I did not deserve to represent France.
"CCMM and ADFI (the two main anti-religious groups in France) sent releases to the media every day and called them demanding that I be boycotted and officially prevented from going to Jerusalem. They even wrote to the Israeli embassy asking them to take the necessary steps so that I could not go. While in Jerusalem, I was the only singer to be constantly followed by an army staff with a machine gun. I appreciate the efforts of the Israeli authorities who tried to protect me from religious fanatics who had been badly informed by the French anti-cult movement. But to be constantly accompanied by someone with a machine gun is rather heavy for someone who, like me, preaches peace in my songs and my speeches.
"I was constantly followed by the French RG, the intelligence police. Messages on my answering machine were cancelled and I did not receive mail left for me at the Reception desk."
She goes on to describe how her friend was severely beaten up because he too belongs to the movement. As a result of this intimidation, her producers canceled her contract to produce two music albums, she lost another artistic project she had committed to, and her career as a singer is in jeopardy. Yet she says, "I will fight to my last breath if need be. We are citizens, not second-class citizens. We deserve respect and we must make sure that the rights of man are respected."
The next account comes from a woman with seven children who belongs to a movement known as the Family, which she describes as a Christian missionary movement. Based upon false information from French anti-religious groups that the parents had abused their children, the police raided their homes:
"At 6 a.m., we were suddenly awakened as our house was surrounded by 50 members of the police force, armed to their teeth, with bullet-proof jackets and police dogs. They knocked violently at the door, and within a few seconds were in every room, holding the occupants with semi-automatic weapons. The police obviously expected to find us armed and dangerous although we oppose violence of all kinds. I wanted to rush to comfort my 4 year-old daughter who, sitting on her bed, was putting her arms towards me, crying. I was violently pushed back in my bed and the police yelled at me while a uniformed woman took my daughter by force from the bed she was holding onto.
"The children were all taken, in their pyjamas, to a police van. They were told they were going on an excursion although they could see their parents being badly treated and wearing handcuffs.
"During 48 hours of close watch and interrogation, we were accused of the worst things. I was insulted, degraded, spoken to in a gross manner and only after 8 hours of arrest allowed to have a sandwich and a coffee. I was not permitted to know what was happening with my children. I was worried as I had a son who had had a very high fever the night before.
"The children underwent several examinations from pediatricians, gynecologists, psychiatrists and psychologists. Those humiliating examinations still live in their minds today as a nightmare. They were told all kinds of horrible things about their parents: that we would not see them again, that we did not love them and would make no effort to get them back. They were placed in an institution and it took us one month to get them back."
As a postscript to this story, all the charges against the parents were thrown out by the Justice Court in Aix-en-Provence. The French anti-religious group ADFI, however, which had generated the false reports that led to the raid and court proceedings, denounced the acquittal as "a disaster" and filed an appeal. Just this February, that appeal was also thrown out and the parents fully vindicated.
My final account comes from a member of the Church of Scientology in France. He states that his name was listed in a 1999 parliamentary commission report as being the former manager of a company which had used the educational principles of L. Ron Hubbard to teach computer training. He goes on:
"I was now the head of a company of 25 people, which was doing very well. I was in touch with important French companies which recognized that our product was the best and the most efficient. "
On 21st September 99, the director of human resources of an important French bank called to tell me he had to end all commercial relationships with my company. He gave only technical reasons and did not mention my membership in Scientology. The same day, his assistant called saying, ‘We must quickly meet to see how we can break the contract.’ A contract of 3 to 4 million francs per year was broken in one day."
He describes how his bank closed his accounts, his flat was mysteriously broken into, the whole place searched but only 30 francs taken from his children’s savings box. Then in October 99, the French national newspaper Liberation ran a front page story about a "Scientologist bug" at the Banque Populaire. The report stated that the RG had alleged new cases of "infiltration."
As a result of these false rumors and smears, he says, "I had 80 clients, I now have only 20 clients."
American citizens are also being targeted by French government intolerance. One of them is the world-renowned American soprano, Julia Migenes, who is at home on all great stages of the world. She has played and sung as Carmen alongside Placido Domingo in the famous movie of the same name. Julia was "disinvited" from performing at a function in Paris when someone "outed" her as a Scientologist. Ironically, and sadly, the event where she was due to perform was to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Such instances of harassment and abuse are not confined to recently established movements, either. An Evangelical Protestant church in Lyon has suffered increasing restrictions on its radio program. Last year, the Church was instructed to air none but musical programs. Until three years ago, city authorities responsible for organizing events in Lyon assisted the Church in conducting its bi-annual gospel concerts in the city. Today, not only does the city no longer furnish that assistance, but officials have refused to provide the Church with facilities such as electricity for the concert equipment.
I wish I could tell you that the situation in France is improving and that the voice of moderation is at last receiving an audience. Unfortunately, I can offer no such reassurance. Strongly influenced by the French anti-religious movement, which M. Vivien and MILS represent within the French government, last month the movement’s actors in the French National Assembly passed a repressive bill designed to criminalize minority religions.
The bill's preamble chillingly proclaims its discriminatory intent "to paralyze the activities of sect organisations." No attempt is made to define a "sect" – a derogatory term which, as we have seen, is applied in France to improperly classify no less than 173 religions, including that of our own President and Vice President.
Under this bill, any religious organization which the government, or the French anti-religious movement, decided to classify as a sect could literally, and without much ado, be shut down and extinguished as a fellowship of believers. No longer would responsibility for a violation be placed on the shoulders of the violator, but this bill, if passed, would criminalize the entire religion for the wrongdoing of some of its people. The bill also creates a new penal offence called "mental manipulation" with hefty prison sentences for those found guilty. There is no medical, legal or academic definition of this term. Indeed, the scientific community has formed a strong consensus that no legally tangible phenomenon of this sort exists. French religious leaders and some of the French media have correctly pointed out that it could be applied to anybody from Carmelite nuns to newspaper reporters to insurance salesmen. Not only the French Protestant Federation, but even French Roman Catholic leaders have expressed concern that this bill, if it passes the Senate and becomes law, could one day be used to shut down their own churches and monasteries.
The bill also prohibits any minority religion from proselytizing within 200 meters of "a hospital, retirement house, public or private institution of prevention, curing or caring, or any school from 2 to 18 year old students." These repressive provisions would not have looked out of place in Stalinist Russia.
An earlier version of the bill, proposed by Senator Nicolas About, passed the French Senate in December. One of its proponents blatantly declared on the Senate floor that its aim was simply to dissolve minority churches without even granting them their due process rights: "The dissolution, which is a political decision, also has the advantage of not using the judicial procedures in which sects are so skillful in maneuvering." In other words, since several courts of appeal have upheld the rights of minority religions, the instigators of About’s bill sought to bypass judicial barriers by closing down religious organizations by government edict. That would bestow on Alain Vivien the role of accuser, judge and executioner.
This intended legislation is the most dangerous attack on religious freedom and civil liberties in Western Europe in the last 60 years, since the Nazi master plan to annihilate the Jews and their religion.
That the traditional churches in France are protesting is encouraging, but you may ask why there is not a greater outcry from the democratically-minded segment of society. France is not a country with a history of religious tolerance. Some of the measures in the proposed bill are hauntingly evocative of the infamous Revocation Edict of 1685, which stripped French Protestants of their civil rights and denounced their faith as a "false religion" – just as today’s minority religions are stigmatized as "sects." There is never any rational reason for discrimination, not today, not 60 years ago, not in 1685. But at least part of the reason — and this view is shared by a growing number of sociologists — is the appallingly high level of political corruption in France. Convictions, convenient resignations and transparent excuses are commonplace. Ergo, the current attempt by Alain Vivien and his legislator friends to criminalize and do away with religion takes on the character of a campaign to remove the traditional barriers to immorality and corruption, including abuse of public office.
Within the last five years in France, there have been more than 200 court cases involving political figures, resulting in at least 30 convictions so far. If those instigating this bill were honest, they would admit that were it applied to political parties – and please note, they made very sure that this new bill contains language that expressly excludes "political parties defending political beliefs" – the major parties in France would face dissolution. As these facts show, if there is one thing that the instigators of the new bill attacking minority religions do not lack, it is hypocrisy.
And that hypocrisy is nowhere more evident than in the fact that two criminal convictions have been entered this year against M. Jacques Guyard, who was, respectively, the Rapporteur of the 1996 and the president of the 1999 parliamentary reports on so-called "sects". Mr. Guyard, who promoted the bill in the National Assembly last month, was convicted, in one case, of defamation, (for falsely labeling the anthroposophical movement as a "sect") and in the other, of influence peddling, for which he received a one-year prison sentence and a fine. Yet the reports by Guyard’s Commission, denounced by scholars, international human rights organizations and a French court as unscientific and biased, are being used to justify a bill to destroy minority religions in France.
There is no question that MILS, M. Vivien and the anti-religious propaganda groups with which he is closely affiliated are instrumental in bringing about this extremist and anti-democratic legislation. Dr. Gunn has asked the State Department to monitor the anti-religious movement in France, and his advice is well-directed. Unfortunately, the French government has chosen to steer by its lights, instead of being guided by international human rights laws. Regrettably, the French government has rejected the requirements of religious pluralism laid down by the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Human Rights Directorate of the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights.
As Americans, as religious leaders and as responsible individuals, we have a responsibility to speak out against such human rights abuses as I have described today. We must demand that France adhere to the international human rights covenants it has ratified – among them, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Helsinki Accords and the European Convention on Human Rights. And, although we have spoken only of France, major problems of religious intolerance also exist elsewhere in Europe. I urge you to give serious consideration to expressing the sense of the Congress by means of a Resolution that demands the governments of those nations comply with their international human rights obligations.
Thank you very much indeed, and I will be happy to answer any questions.