More than 60 Senators claim that the new article incriminating “psychological subjection” is against the Constitution and international treaties signed by France.
by Massimo Introvigne
“Bitter Winter” regards the new anti-cult law passed in France on April 9 as a serious threat to religious liberty. It creates a new crime of “psychological subjection” based on the pseudo-scientific theory of brainwashing. It also sends to jail those who counsel others “to abandon or not to undertake a needed medical or prophylactic treatment” generally recommended by the medical community. The law had been rejected by the Senate but passed by the House, which in the French system has the final word on laws in their final reading.
We are not alone in considering these provisions as dangerous. On April 15, more than sixty senators from the liberal-conservative party The Republicans requested the intervention of the Constitutional Council to stop the law by declaring it non-constitutional before it comes into force.
Concerning the new crime of “psychological subjection,” they wrote that it “makes it possible to punish any type of influence, whatever its origin (religious, ideological, marital, in the family, etc.). Consequently, it does not guarantee the reconciliation between individual freedoms, in particular personal freedom, freedom of conscience, and freedom of opinion guaranteed respectively by articles 2, 10 and 11 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of August 26, 1789 and by articles 8, 9, and 10 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, nor the objective of safeguarding human dignity and public order.”
The senators also believe that the criminalization of any suggestion “to abandon or not to undertake a needed medical or prophylactic treatment” violates freedom of belief, freedom of opinion, and the right to refuse medical treatments.
On the latter point (but, interestingly, not on “psychological subjection”) the Constitutional Council also received a request that the corresponding provision be declared against the Constitution signed on April 15 by right-wing leader Marine Le Pen and 73 MPs of her group.
Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religio. From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.
