The press, movies, and TV dramas can be strong allies of truth. They can also turn away from it, distracting the public through spectacle and display.
by Marco Respinti*
*Full version of a paper presented to introduce “Panel 2: Global Experiences” in the capacity of moderator, and as a speaker in “Panel 3: Which Solutions?” at the conference “Faiths under Fire in the Age of Rising Hate Speech,” hosted by Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF) in Prague, Czech Republic, on November 13, 2025.
The enemies of religious liberty are not mysterious. They are the secularist states and their bureaucratic appendages—governments, fiscal agencies, administrative bodies; terrorist groups, that persecute in the name of some purity; mainline churches and movements that politicize faith and weaponize numbers to marginalize dissent; and the self-appointed anti-cultists, who brandish the word “cult” like a gun, firing it at anyone they happen to dislike—“cult” being a convenient label, endlessly reusable, infinitely abusable.
But their power would be far weaker were it not for the media—the great amplifiers of prejudice, always ready to trade nuance for noise. Of course, this only happens where a press exists and is not just a façade—at least in what we still dare to call the free world. Thus, when it comes to religious liberty, the media themselves become part of the problem, especially in democratic societies where they are supposed to act as watchdogs of democracy and instruments of transparency, yet often behave as its prosecutors and judges, or even as the priests of orthodoxy.
The power of the media is, in fact, enormous—potentially boundless. People tend to take as verified whatever they read in newspapers or see on television. The media can easily stir passions, kindle indignation, persuade audiences, and manipulate both truth and consensus. They can do it because, as mediating structures between facts and people, they enjoy a dangerous freedom: the power to shape reality itself. And if people have no other source of knowledge, the media can twist truths until lies appear luminous.
I need only mention a few cases.
In Nigeria, Islamist groups are slaughtering Christians. Yet, commentators and the media look the other way, dismissing these horrors as mere social unrest, local agricultural disputes, or even the effects of climate change.
In the People’s Republic of China, the Communist regime is unfolding a vast cultural genocide against Uyghurs, Tibetans, Mongols, Falun Gong practitioners, House Church members, disobedient Catholics, believers of The Church of Almighty God, and Hui Muslims, to name but a few. Reporters stay silent, shackled to a political class that values trade over the relief of human suffering, allowing oppression and atrocity to march unchecked.
Tai Ji Men, a spiritual menpai (similar to a school) of qigong in the Republic of China (Taiwan), was falsely and maliciously accused of tax evasion and even black magic. Acquitted at every level of Taiwan’s judiciary, including the Supreme Court, its sacred lands were still nationalized. Corrupt bureaucrats continue to claim the movement owes the state money it never took, acting with brazen impunity. Certain media amplify these falsehoods, creating a vast echo chamber that distorts public perception by misrepresenting the facts.
In Japan, a spectacular persecution has been unleashed against the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (formerly known as the Unification Church), in which the victim has been turned into the perpetrator in the complex case of the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe (1954‒2022). Consequently, the Tokyo District Court ordered the dissolution of the Family Federation as a religious organization. An appeal is pending.
Later, in South Korea—where the movement was founded in 1954 by Rev. Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012)—the widow of the founder and current leader of the movement, Mrs. Hak Ja Han Moon, was arrested on September 23, 2025, following baseless accusations. In the same wave of events, several unrelated Christian churches were also raided by the police, revealing a specific hostility toward religion itself. Mrs. Hak Ja Han Moon, now 82 years old, had already surrendered her passport to the authorities and was arrested only a few days after undergoing cardiac surgery. On November 4, due to the urgent need for eye surgery, she was transferred to a designated hospital, where she remained under strict supervision. Still, she was compelled to return to jail, disregarding medical advice, after three days.
And of course, the Path of YahRa in the Czech Republic, this country, whose founders have been detained in the Philippines, and here also, where all believers and practitioners suffer the dire consequences of social stigma.
All this stands as the staggering outcome of a political machination—one that the mainstream media have eagerly supported, betraying their fundamental duty to seek and tell the truth. They have abdicated their professional ethics.
I want to move the discourse forward by one step. The immense harm media causes by distorting the public’s perception of reality about religious groups—and religion in general, particularly minority groups—is amplified when the entertainment industry steps in, turning misinformation into spectacle and reinforcing prejudice on a massive scale.
There are many examples I could draw from. I chose one that occurred in my country, Italy, and is rarely discussed.
“Un passo dal cielo” (One Step from Heaven) is a TV fiction broadcast by RAI, the Italian state television, since April 2011. It is extremely popular and, frankly, quite enjoyable, portraying good people fighting crime, upholding good morals, and conveying a familiar, wholesome atmosphere. Yet, with no real narrative reason, in Seasons 4 and 5—broadcast in 2017 and 2019 respectively—a new character is introduced as the chief felon. Albert Kroess, known as “The Master,” is portrayed as the spiritual leader of a stereotypical “cult” called “Deva” and is involved in a homicide, to the extent that when he is found guilty, the Deva cult is disbanded.
Of course, Deva does not exist, but it encapsulates everything that people think they know—and that the media want them to know—about “cults,” whatever that term really means. It is a way to instill in the audience the idea that spiritual groups exist that are harmful and murderous. Yes, this may sometimes be true, but what is the need to use that stereotype in an otherwise nice show, casting a dark shadow on groups that are labeled as criminals only because the public does not know them? Why do the media not present them accurately? Consider, please, also that mainstream TV shows very seldom portray religious groups in a positive way to balance their narrative on so-called “cults.”
The same seems to be happening in this country, the Czech Republic, with the three-episode 2022 TV miniseries “Guru,” inspired by the case of Guru Jára (now called YahRa), founder of the group the Path of YahRa (POYRA)—a community to which “Bitter Winter” has devoted several articles. The group’s teachings include elements of sacred eroticism, which have inevitably drawn the attention of anti-cult activists, often relying on apostates. The movement has been accused of sexual misconduct; a trial was held, and its leader and other members were sentenced. I am not an expert on that case. I am neither a lawyer nor a judge, and I do not dispute judicial sentences—I accept them, while remaining aware that they may be wrong. Yet exaggeration never serves truth.
The TV series omits crucial facts, shaping everything in a way that elicits public hostility toward the group and its leader. This is a serious problem for a production that, from the outset, claims to be “inspired by real events.”
Speakers in this panel are asked to propose solutions.
One is that the time has come for persecuted or threatened religious communities to organize teams dedicated to addressing every instance of slander coming from the media and the entertainment industry—writing directly to CEOs and directors of media outlets and production companies or even seeking legal redress when necessary. Media and entertainment can be powerful allies of truth, but only when they do not turn their back on it.
Another is to set up independent media outlet to counteract media bias. It may prove difficult, it needs money, time, and dedication, but let me just mention the successful example of “Bitter Winter,” the online magazine I am honored to serve as Director-in-Charge, since its start in May 2018. It a few cases, “Bitter Winter” has been able to turn the tide in favor of the oppressed. This has been done thanks to the help of the testimony of the persecuted themselves, nonetheless it may encourage many. And those who seek justice can always count on us.
A third example is the inspiring case of the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS), which has recently won a case in the United States against a false accusation of human trafficking, also overcoming the usual disparaging media campaign.
Finally, media malice could be reduced by an apt comparative study and research into the registration processes that religious groups must undergo with states to be allowed to legally exist. Many times, these procedures, which tend to be highly selective, can in fact generate and justify prejudice that media easily exploit.
I am concluding, and my conclusion should not be construed as an endorsement of any political figure or party. Yet the resignation of BBC executives Tim Davie and Deborah Turness on November 9, 2025, after the network was exposed for misleadingly editing US President Donald J. Trump’s January 6, 2021, speech—resignation that rests on the fact that the two executives acknowledged that the BBC behaved inappropriately—stands as a stark reminder that the media must bear responsibility for their own actions.
Marco Respinti is an Italian professional journalist, member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), author, translator, and lecturer. He has contributed and contributes to several journals and magazines both in print and online, both in Italy and abroad. Author of books and chapter in books, he has translated and/or edited works by, among others, Edmund Burke, Charles Dickens, T.S. Eliot, Russell Kirk, J.R.R. Tolkien, Régine Pernoud and Gustave Thibon. A Senior fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal (a non-partisan, non-profit U.S. educational organization based in Mecosta, Michigan), he is also a founding member as well as a member of the Advisory Council of the Center for European Renewal (a non-profit, non-partisan pan-European educational organization based in The Hague, The Netherlands). A member of the Advisory Council of the European Federation for Freedom of Belief, in December 2022, the Universal Peace Federation bestowed on him, among others, the title of Ambassador of Peace. From February 2018 to December 2022, he has been the Editor-in-Chief of International Family News. He serves as Director-in-Charge of the academic publication The Journal of CESNUR and Bitter Winter: A Magazine on Religious Liberty and Human Rights.
