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EDITOR'S COMMENT:

As a footnote, this story was filed by the UPI, which was recently purchased
by NEWS WORLD COMMUNICATIONS, INC., one of Sun Myung Moon's organizations:

http://www.egroups.com/message/nhnenews/288?&start=3

--- David Sunfellow

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FRANCE AIMS AT BANNING 'DANGEROUS' SECTS
United Press International
June 23, 2000 10:32

http://www.marketwatch.newsalert.com/bin/story?StoryId=CovlGWbebzNjHBMnLlwn1
BhrZ&FQ=v%25upi&Title=Headlines%20for%3A%20v%25upi%20

PARIS, June 23 (UPI) -- French Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou says a
proposed French law legally defining cults and banning them -- only just
approved by the National Assembly -- is a "significant advance for
democratic states."

The proposed statute won National Assembly approval Thursday and now needs
only the final support of the French Senate before it is enacted. It has the
backing of the Socalist-led government of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.
Guigou told French radio today the new law would arm the country with
"appropriate legal tools needed to combat cults." The language in the
legislation makes "mental manipulation" or brainwashing a criminal offence.

The statute has come under fierce attack by various religious minorities --
most especially the Church of Scientology, which charges the statute as
"anti-democratic."

A spokeswoman for the Scientologists in France, Danihle Gounord, said Friday
of the new law:

"This is a steep and slippery slope for democracy. ... In western Europe,
the only regime so far to pass a law on mental manipulation was the fascist
government of Mussolini, in an attempt to get rid of the communists."

Under the proposed new law, courts would have a particular procedure to
follow by which groups could be defined as cults and banned and --
significantly -- kept under a ban even if they reform under a new name. A
government committee in France has already branded 173 sects as what the
called dangerous quasi-religious groups in the country. But both the Church
of Scientology and the Unification Church have called such identification
fascist, anti-democratic and a breach of basic human rights laws.
The head of the government committee identifying so-called dangerous sects
is Alain Vivien.

And in February, he said there should be no total bans imposed on all sects,
but that "extremely dangerous" organizations -- and he singled out the
Church of Scientology in particular -- should be disbanded by government
order. His committee report asserted French Scientology church leaders were
manipulated by church headquarters in Los Angeles. Vivien also claimed
Scientology in France included "underground activities led from abroad."

The Church of Scientology has an estimated 30,000 members in France, among
its estimated 8 million members worldwide.

A sponsor of the measure, Catherine Picard, claims current French law is
unable to address what she calls "increasingly sophisticated and
manipulative groups."

Just a week ago, representatives of largely American religious groups bought
a full-page advertisement in the International Herald Tribune newspaper
urging the government to back away from the proposed law. Support for any
such law, the advertisement said, would result in France being "compared to
China" in its disrespect for human rights. The Church of Scientology was
established in the United States in 1954, and now has some celebrity
members, including actors John Travolta and Tom Cruise and his wife, Nicole
Kidman.

The impetus for the new was the mass suicides of members of the Order of the
Solar Temple in the mid-1990s, and allegations of extortion and
brain-washing leveled at a number of other cults.

According to one recent poll, 73 percent of French people believe sects are
a danger to democracy, and 86 percent support banning the likes of such
sects as the Church of Scientology or the Order of the Solar Temple.

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