Miviludes report

Tuesday, March 22, 2005 13:50
Unauthorized translation

PARIS (Reuters) - In its annual report to the Prime Minister, the Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires (Miviludes) dealt with "sectarians risks" and their consequences for children and adults.

The organization, founded in 2002, called attention to the risk of the "desocialization of children," primarily students within the communities, and warned of the "language of enticement" directed at young people, primarily through the Internet.

"In the general context in which the mistreatment of children and attempts at suicide by youth are cause for increasing concern, consideration should be given to the danger that children's relations with their families are threated by groups of adherents, and to the risks that young people can be influenced by a certain language," read part of the 115-page report submitted by Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

Chaired by Jean-Louis Langlais, the organization gave, as an example, children who are raised by a group or are regarded as children of the guru, by whom they are sometimes given "presents," including sex. They also recalled the fate of a 17-month old baby whose death had possibly been caused by inadequate vegetarian nutrition.

Besides that, the Mission also called for protection for adults who, because of individual weakness, are in a different "category" from other potential adherents who make sects their goal. For instance on their official web pages the Raelians represent agreement with their thesis as an opportunity "to win friends in France," noted Miviludes.

The organization, whose mission is the observation and analysis of the sect phenomenon, also warned about "a prevailing tendency to recruit new adherents through the Internet making use of the Gothic wave that is particularly favored by adolescents and is tendentiously presented as aesthetic."

The report showed particular interest in the satanic movement, whose adherents share common vallues like "anti-republican connections, a common taste in music, deviant sexual practices and an explicit preference for magic and/or vampirism."

In 2003 qnd 2004, the Mission revealed possible connections between two suicides and two murders with the emergence of Satanism, which the authors of the report have also associated with increased desecrations at cemeteries.

INFORMATION FOR PREVENTION

Miviludes compiles the activities of nine ministries (justice, foreign affairs, interior, defense, economy, education, youth, solidarity and labor) in the fight against sects.

In the chapter about last year's planned progress, the Mission welcomed the passing of the law on bioethics and on psychotherapy, which "puts an end point to the advertisement for reproductive cloning and should form a better framework for a profession which has been subject to definite distractions."

The Mission also presented eight proposals for action, which are meant primarily to enhance preventive measures for young people, to sensitize the business environment and to develop university research.

In a joint effort with the Ministries for Education and for Youth, Miviludes is involved in the distribution of preventive information through audiovisual media and the Internet. It encourages training for speakers who specialize in the care of the victims of sect influence.

It also offers compilation of documents "that emphasize the guarantees with which support of children and of people in a position of vulnerability is provided."

For Miviludes the "sectarian" character of an organization comes from its ability "to modify the personality of its adherents with regards to preferring an unconditional adulation for the clan and its guru."

It also recognizes that "one of the characteristics of sect influence undoubtedly relates to the difficulty of assessing its damage and thus determining the associated legal responsibility."

According to a parliamentary report there are about 200 sects in France, most of which have fewer than 2,000 members. The most significant, the Jehovahs Witnesses, has 130,000 adherents.

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