FECRIS LONDON CONFERENCE
ON SUBJECT:
"HOW CULTS ARE INFILTRATING WORLD INSTITUTIONS"

PRESS RELEASE

FRENCH GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL CALLS FOR EUROPEAN PROTECTION FOR CHILDREN IN CULTS

The annual conference of FECRIS, a Europe wide federation of anti-cult organisations and family groups, attended by delegates from France, Belgium, Britain, Croatia, Ireland, Italy, Russia and Sweden was held at the weekend in London. Other delegates registered to attend from around Europe and further afield had been prevented from doing so by the prevailing aviation restrictions.

Delegates and speakers called for European action to defend the human rights of members of oppressive cult organisations, with special reference to the needs to children brought up within cults, who were often isolated off from normal influences, denied education, forced in to unpaid work and otherwise abused.

George Fenech, a former magistrate reporting to the Prime Minister of France as President of the Paris based Interministerial Commission on Cultic Abuse MIVILUDES, told the conference that cults disregarded national boarders and that there was a need for a common approach to this problem. European legislation should mirror the About Picard Law, which had criminalised mental manipulation by cults operating in France. Former French parliamentarian Mme Catherine Picard who had sponsored and given her name to the French law also attended the conference.

This call was echoed by Belgian Federal MP Andre Frederic who told the conference that draft laws similar to those passed in France were under active consideration in the Belgian parliament .

Tom Sackville, former UK Home Office minister and President of FECRIS, congratulated the French, Belgian, Russian and German governments for the action they had taken in support of the human rights of individuals and families affected by cults.

He contrasted it with the cynically and laissez-faire attitude of successive British governments, who had allowed policy to be guided by work-shy Home Office officials advised by so-called experts on comparative religion, some of whom were seen by cults’ victims as actively promoting the interests of Scientology and similar organisations. This policy had worked to the detriments of thousands of British families affected by cults during the last 30 years.

These sentiments were echoed by Audrey Chaytor, cult expert and Chief Executive of UK charity The Family Survival Trust.

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