Official reactions to the cult issue raised at the Parliament - (08.04.2001) The cult issue on the agenda of the parliament C (08.04.2001)

Blacklist of harmful cults
Jehovah's Witnesses under investigation

HRWF International Secretariat (19.07.2001) C Website :http://www.hrwf.net C Email : info@hrwf.net C On the 6th of April , 2001 Las Ultimas Noticias reported that the members of Parliament on the Commission of Religious Cults had received reports and testimonies from the police about approximately 20 religious organizations in Chile which could be harmful (See the characteristics of such a profile in HRWF press service dated 18 July 2001). The deputies had requested that the Minister of Justice order an investigation and, if the antecedents were proved, cancel the legal status of these organizations. The list of suspected organizations included Jehovahs Witnesses among others. The following are excerpts from the above-mentioned article :

An entity with 200,000 members could be banned

By O. Santa Maria/H. Cossio

Las Ultimas Noticias (6.04.2001) () According to the information obtained, police reports exist that arrived at Parliament characterizing the Jehovah's Witnesses as a group that isolates its members from society (forbidding the reading of novels, newspapers and magazines, not allowing them to watch television, amongst other forms of communication) and foments the rejection of patriotic symbols such as the flag and the national anthem. Plus, their members consider the honoring of these symbols to be pagan rituals. The reports suggests that punishments exist for whomever transgresses these norms. Besides this, it comments on some of their characteristics, such as falsely announcing the end of the word in 1914, 1925 and 1975; their refusal of blood transfusions and a wide variety of celebrations, such as birthdays and Christmas.

We are not a cult

()The legal representative for the Witnesses, Pedro Lobato, refuted the mention of their group in this category. We are not a cult, our focus is the Bible. We believe that it is not God's will to take everybody to Heaven, only the meek. We are 60,000 Witnesses in Santiago and 200,000 in the whole country, he briefly commented. He pointed out that they will not have a formal opinion about their inclusion in the list of cults until they receive an official notification from the Department of Justice

Blacklist of cults

suspected to be harmful :

Unification Church (Moon)
Church of Scientology
Children of God/The Family
Church Universal of God
New Acropolis
Universal Christian Gnostic Center
Osho-Bhagwan Rajneesh
Nichiren Shoshu Soka Gakkai
Sahaja-Yoga
International Association for Krishna Consciousness
Transcendental Meditation movement
Jehovah's Witnesses
Lumen Dei
Neocatecumenal Way
Supreme Truth
Revolutionaries for Christ
Revolutionary Movement of Jesus Christ

Theocratic Movement and Martin Luther King
Tantrical Circle of the Supreme Ecstasy of the Divine Union
Nevara or the Consecrated to God
Amanda Marga

The Holy Ones
Followers of Satan
The Mission
Spiritual Congregation of Peace and Love

Characteristics of destructive cults

established by the Parliament

HRWF International Secretariat (18.07.2001) C Website : http://www.hrwf.net C Email : info@hrwf.net - In spring the Chamber of Deputies special cult commission consisting of 13 members of the Chilean Lower House of Parliament conducted investigation of 20 cults qualified as destructive . The creation of the parliamentary commission had been triggered by the disappearance of two youths of the Tibetan Center of Studies in Vina del Mar, in Spain. The legal status of this group has been cancelled by the government since then (See HRWF press service dated 13 July). Based on a research conducted by the Special Commission in Chile, destructive cults were characterized as follows:

Destructive profile

El Mercurio de Valparasio (15.04.2001) - According to what was established in the draft agreement by the Chamber of Deputies, resolving to create a special commission to investigate cults, these are characterized, amongst other aspects, by the following:

a) Fanaticism, inflexibility, exclusive group, revealed leader

b) The faithful break ties with the world, specifically with their families, their friends and their educational surroundings

c) The faithful are conditioned by means that violate human dignity and generally, unacceptable behavior is required, such as perverse sexuality, slavery, sleep deprivation and rejection of the biological family.

d) The leaders are illegally made wealthy by exploiting their followers, requiring them to work without pay, quotas of daily income, without submitting to labor laws.

e) Manipulated sexuality as a way of behavioral control, especially of women, which is known as "holy prostitution" and which is added to other forms of sex for commercial ends.

f) The children of the group are educated to reproduce the ideology and the practices of this organization and in many cases they are the victims of sexual abuse.

g) Grave injuries to the physical and mental health of the followers.

h) Aggressiveness against traditional churches, such as defiling temples and places that are of significance to Christian entities.

i) Practices of defiling cemeteries and tombs; practices of necrophilia and mass and individual suicides.

Cults and the status of the law

by Jorge Enrique Precht Pizarro, Professor of Public Law

at Catholic Pontifical University of Chile

El Mercurio (12.04.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (19.07.2001) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net C Email: info@hrwf.net - The cancellation of the legal status of the Center of Tibetan Studies has renewed interest in the so-called destructive cults. According to State law, only associations that are supposedly religious and whose practices offend public order, are immoral or use psychological coercion to such a degree that fundamental human rights of freedom of conscience are violated, should be considered cults, since these annihilate the autonomy and individuality of the members.

Only in these precise cases of pseudo religious socially destructive groups does the State have the right and the constitutional duty to intervene, taking care that the measures taken protect the individuals involved and society at large, without affecting legitimate constitutional rights such as freedom of conscience, freedom of religion and freedom of association.

In particular, it has the duty to intervene in favor of children of the members of destructive cults that are given by the parents to the organization or to the cult leader to be brought up, forsaking their paternal rights and duty to educate and bring up their children.

On the other hand, the selectivity, adjustment and rigor of the legislative, administrative and judicial measures that should be taken, can not be easily attained if due to social or political contingencies, a climate of sensationalism and suspicion towards all new religious groups exists, labeling as cult--without research or basis--groups that are innovative or that distance themselves from the large church paradigm or historic religions, or are outside of the Judeo-Christian framework in which the majority of Chileans were educated and continue to adhere to.

The Law requires that secular force not be employed to enforce ideas and much less religious beliefs. The State itself requires that a judicial regime not be created or special penal sanctions for determined groups or individuals, but rather that common law be applied to all. For this reason, the vast majority of countries have not resorted to the classification of a specific legal nature to the formation of cults (as if they were private militias) or manipulation of conscience, and has preferred to perfect the habitual judicial arsenal, such as crimes of fraud, inducing the abandonment of home, using religious judicial registration for profit or pseudo-therapy, offenses to psychic or physical health, sexual crimes, illegal association, etc.

The case of France in attempting since 1999 to create a penal character for the formation of cults and manipulation of conscience* is an isolated affair in Europe and has led rise to a great deal of polemic in the interior and exterior of the French Parliament which has yet to end.

The French parliamentary practice of producing a list of cults has been equally strongly opposed. Groups that are not destructive, nor could ever be and religious entities that are without question members of established and fully recognized churches are included. With this list thus discredited, the truly destructive groups benefit from the doubt implanted due to the methods employed.

Therefore, except in the case of crimes and behavior that is likely to violate the constitutional limits of religious freedom, the State must not intervene, leaving in the hands of society, especially of men and women with a religious background, to organize and coordinate, to avoid that in the name of the social legitimacy provided by religion, individuals without scruples commit crimes or profit from public credibility and profit at the expense of the weaknesses of individuals or the tragedies of life. There is room here for inter-religious dialogue that, as is well known, exceeds ecumenical discussions. This dialogue should be translated into private initiatives of social protection against cults.

It is known that the majority of cults operate as de facto associations. Nevertheless, some of them, and the most important of them feverishly seek judicial recognition as religious entities. In this case, the State should deny such registration. It's not enough for a group to qualify itself as religious for that to be the case. Such self-denomination can be entirely fictitious and can cover other purposes, even criminal ones.

If the administrative branch of the State doesn't have the faculties to avoid this flagellation or to supervise to ensure that there is no deviation from the original objectives of the entities already granted legal status, the Government who oversees this administration can exercise its faculties in presenting legal initiatives. And to avoid any administrative discretionary powers, let the judicial recourses available be made clear.

On the other hand, citizens have the right to be able to identify with all transparency which groups and under which proceedings, are being conceded or have been conceded legal standing as religious groups, in order to be able to oppose such petitions or denounce excesses, abuses or negligence. But as long as even the most conscientious lawyers must continue searching for religious registrations in the muddle of the more than 200 daily associations the Official Bulletin publishes under the title of Other Societies, or it continues to be maintained that any association that denominates itself as religious, can send supposed ministers to hospitals, prisons and military facilities, despite the lack of any legal status that gives society the minimum security that they will not abuse of public faith, the correct social reaction cannot be carried out and we will just be moved by the plight of those fallen in battle left behind by the destructive cults.

As such, religious experience will continue to be discredited, despite the almost unanimity of Chileans who declare their adherence to some belief of that nature and many of which have made these beliefs the focus of their lives.

*HRWF note : The crime of mental manipulation was eventually dropped from the final version of the About-Picard anti-cult law. However, it was replaced by a similar provision that already exists in the penal code for other purposes and that allows to reach the same goal : the abuse of a person in a state of psychological or physical dependence caused by the exertion of heavy or repeated pressure or techniques liable to alter his/her judgement, to induce such person to do or forbear an act that is seriously prejudical to him/her.

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Official reactions to the cult issue raised at the Parliament

HRWF International Secretariat (16.07.2001) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net C Email : info@hrwf.net C The 8 April 2001 issue of the Diario Las Ultimas Noticias reported on the steps that were taken by the Chilean government in spring to regulate the activities of allegedly dangerous cults (See HRWF press service dated 13 July). A survey carried out among 650 citizens last April revealed ample support for the shutdown of these groups. This issue is dedicated to commentaries made in the same newspaper by two church spokespeople and a parliamentary representative, as well as by a psychologist.

Interview with Pedro Zabala (Lutheran),

president of the Christian Confraternity of Churches

Any kind of control of religious groups can be fatal for freedom of religion

By Fernando Marambio

Diario Las Ultima Noticias (08.04.2001) - Much care must be taken in dealing with the topic, proposed the president of the Christian Confraternity of Churches, Pedro Zabala, since, as he affirmed, "not all cults are harmful". At the same time, he warned that the way to avoid dangerous groups is not to increase control, since this could endanger freedom of religion, which is guaranteed by legislation and which concerns the Protestant world very much.

Zabala, a Lutheran theologian, asserted that the ideal is to create dialogue between representatives of diverse persuasions, to face the phenomenon in a deeper way, and not to lament in the future possible harm done to persons that subscribe to these groups.

Q: Do you view the term "cult" as pejorative?

Zabala : Of course. In the past, evangelicals suffered unjust attacks from people who had catalogued us as cults, as a way of attacking us. Also, the dictionary of the Royal Academy of Language defines the term "Lutheran" as a cult. It's always the case that whomever holds the power has defined what can be considered respectable and who should be called a cult.

Q : But here groups are being questioned that offend people's dignity and liberty .

Zabala :We must be careful, because not every cult is the same. With the Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, we have a lot of differences, we consider them to be cult-like, but they don't commit crimes nor immoral behavior, since they are even very drastic along those lines.

Q : So how then do we identify those who cause harm to their followers?

Zabala : We propose that in the future the name "new religious movements" be established for these groups that arise. That way they won't be labeled by calling them cults.

Q : Is it possible to tighten controls on these types of groups?

Zabala : I don't think so. We are free citizens and we can't have this kind of offense. Any kind of control can be fatal, a true retrocession. We must maintain the freedom of worship, avoiding that any other entity questions that for any reason.

Q : But you believe that the authorities should just do nothing when faced with abuses?

Zabala : No, because the Department of Justice can revoke legal status, besides applying penal punishment for immoral behavior, or outright abuses.

Q : What solution do you propose?

Zabala : We must divulge our ideas to the youth, so that they are not misled. We must focus on a serious dialogue between experts, to determine how to combat this worrisome phenomenon. The answer is to devote ourselves to education, not to repression.

Interview with Alfredo Soiza,

Episcopal Delegate for Ecumenism and cults

The Catholic Church is very concerned in taking adequate measures to ensure that abuses are not repeated through education and prevention, especially amongst young people

The Episcopal Delegate for Ecumenism and Cults of the Archbishopric of Santiago, the priest Alfredo Soiza, sees little possibility for combating cults by legal means. For him the legislation guaranteeing freedom of worship establishes a series of difficulties for the regulating of actions of some of these groups that he describes as "pseudo religious".

For Soiza, who has worked on this subject for over 15 years, boundaries cannot be established on the actions of these entities without taking away the freedom of belief consecrated in the new Law of Worship, by which these groups can allege that intervention is illegal.

Q : How to put a stop to groups that could abuse their members?

Soiza : The truth is that in all this the law of worship has functioned as a mixed bag. In virtue of a very important principle of freedom, a series of harmful groups can be harbored. I don't believe in civil control, because this could lend itself to a determined government gaining control of religiosity and establishing prohibitions. To avoid this, we have to value the independence of religious entities.

Q : What then?

Soiza : The law does not permit regulation, and there we arrive at a sensitive point, because it may lead to the appearance of more cults in the future.

Q : What's happening with the controls of the Department of Justice?

Soiza : When a group requests legal recognition, it present a request in which it outlines its goals, inspiration, principles. Nevertheless, we all know that much slips by on paper. Besides, an investigation cannot be carried out unless a concerned party files a complaint.

Q : Have you discussed this topic with other denominations?

Soiza : We have been in touch with evangelical pastors. We are concerned because abuses against people exist, caused by individuals who impose their charisma and use the scriptures for their own ends.

Q : Will you take measures conjointly?

Soiza : I couldn't say. The Catholic Church is very concerned in taking adequate measures to ensure that abuses are not repeated through education and prevention, especially amongst young people, who are more likely to fall.

Interview with UDI Deputy Gonzalo Ibanez

The State's Security Council can be advised to adopt measures against cults,

or the Department of Justice to better control this type of situation.

At the end of April, the report of the investigation commission of the Lower Chamber of Parliament that inquired into the associations of religious or philosophical nature listed those that, for different reasons, could be involved in illegal activities and immoral behavior.

Thus maintained Deputy Gonzalo Ibanez (UDI party), who is in disagreement and upset with his colleagues Alberto Espina (RN), Fanny Pollarolo and Felipe Letelier (both PS) for giving information that they have collected in this case to the Department of Justice to request that the legal status of these groups be canceled. In Ibanez's opinion, this advance could motivate the initiation of a witch hunt.

Q : If a member of parliament, as any citizen, has knowledge of illegal actions he must place them at the disposition of the law?

Ibanez : Yes, that is true. But in this case, the possible knowledge is provided by the antecedents that have been collected by the commission. These have to be presented to the House so that decisions may be adopted in each case. Skipping this stage can provoke public alarm and an atmosphere of a witch hunt that is not a good idea to incite.

Q : What can be decided in this case?

Ibanez : The State's Security Council can be advised to adopt measures against cults, or the Department of Justice to better control this type of situation. But the legislative capacity of the Chamber of Deputies should not be confused with the work carried out by the police or the judiciary. Legislators can only control organisms and public officials as far as knowing how adequate they are in the carrying out of the law.

Q : Could the Government be requested to shut down these cults?

Ibanez : Yes, we could advise this, but the Chamber of Deputies would have to be in agreement.

Q : How many groups of this kind are there?

Ibanez : We had access to information on several of these groups, but we don't have a register of them.

Interview with Humberto Lagos, psychologist

Tragedies as have happened in other countries could occur

Psychologist Humberto Lagos gave a message to parents to be alert to the behavior of their young people. For him, the investigation by the Chamber of Deputies is an important milestone and not persecution of religious groups.

He affirmed that it is necessary to end the possible abuses of some cults "before we have to lament mass suicides as in other countries." He sustained that the main threat are satanic cults that commit acts of necrophilia, and not the Jehovah Witnesses, who he describes as inoffensive and victims of an unjust attack.

Q : What are the main errors in the way that the subject of cults has been handled?

Lagos : The Chilean people are very ignorant along these lines. We're all very observant of what was occurring with the Tibetan cult, but once it's not in the news, we forget about it, risking that this phenomenon repeats itself. This is not acceptable, because tragedies as have happened in other countries could occur.

Q : Do you think the response has been passive?

Lagos : I would like to think that every effort was made with the investigation, but it is not yet the case. A greater education of the people is necessary before we have to lament mass suicides as in other countries.

Q : What cults are the most dangerous for Chilean society?

Lagos : Experience tells us that we must be alert, especially with satanic cults that often attract unstable youths, emotional, without work or suffering family problems. These groups occasionally go to cemeteries and take advantage of the bodies of young women who have just died. Also, the Children of God are dangerous, as they make women believe that prostitution is an act of salvation.

Q : And what's happening with the Jehovah's Witnesses?

Lagos : No, they do not commit atrocities. They are strict and cult-like, but they don't denigrate people. In any case, the results of the Commission of the Chamber of Deputies investigating this topic will be ready on Monday, which will conclude a process of fact finding that has been extremely important in our country.

The cult issue on the agenda of the parliament

This special issue of our press service is exclusively devoted to Chile, where steps have been taken by the Chilean government / legislatures since March of this year to regulate and/or ban the activities of what some consider to be "dangerous sects and/or cults." The French anti-cult legislation, which has already been seriously taken into consideration in China to combat the Falun Gong, is now referred to by the Chilean parliament to fight against minority religions.

The Chamber of Deputies commission investigating cults gave the Minister of Justice the background to 20 cults qualified as destructive to Chilean society, by which it requested the Government to investigate and cancel their legal status. The commission received some 30 testimonies of persons that had belonged to cults, which led the commission to conclude that 100 organizations of this type operate in Chile.

The Chilean government has already canceled the legal status of the Center for Tibetan Studies. The Unification Church, Children of God/The Family, Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) and the Church of Scientology are also under special scrutiny.

This issue of our press service is the first part of a longer series on this country.

Survey reveals ample support

for the proposition of a group of Congressmen

The Majority supports the shutdown of cults considered dangerous

81.1% approve the shutdown of these groups,

75.6% say that this would not be a symptom of intolerance and

61.1% think that the clause would not oppose the Law of Equality of Worship

by Fernando Marambio

Diario Las Ultimas Noticias (08.04.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (13.07.2001) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net C Email : info@hrwf.net C The parliamentary proposal seeking to ban the functioning of 20 cults accused of assaulting their members, and some of them of immoral sexual practices, received wide support from the citizenry.

People think that a ban of this kind is an affair pertaining to the public realm and not intolerance, and as such would not contradict freedom of religion. Nevertheless, nearly 50% of people believe that the government will not end up shutting down these groups.

This is evidenced in the survey carried out this week by "Ultimas Noticias" which spoke with 650 people who previously declared that they were aware of the controversy aroused by the request to shut down these groups. This initiative was set forth by a group of Deputies who investigated the supposed dangerous cults after the case of a young woman who was induced to abandon her home to be married to a polygamous guru in Spain.

An interesting aspect of the survey is that Chileans believe that sexual conduct within a cult does not pertain to the realm of individual privacy and that the State should repress them if they are considered immoral.

On the other hand, parents manifested a very strong rejection to the idea of their children joining a cult, since they affirmed that the recruiting of its members was carried out by deceptive means. Meanwhile they did a "mea culpa" in recognizing that part of the responsibility of the disorientation of their children was theirs.

In general, the toughest group against cults was women and the least rigid was young people.

According to the sampling, 81.1% of those surveyed affirmed to be favorable to the shutting down of cults with reprehensible behavior. Women proved to be more convinced of this point, and 82.4% were inclined to shutting down these communities, surpassing men by almost 3 percent.

Amongst socioeconomic groups, the most convinced in favor of shutting down the cults was the middle class, in which 82.2% of those surveyed went in that direction. As far as age, people between 36 and 45 made known their fervor in supporting this request, reaching 88.5%.

The other side was represented by those surveyed amongst the upper class and those from 21 to 25 years of age, which displayed respectively 25.3% and 26.8% rejection of this proposal, manifesting their less conservative nature.

Public good vs. Intolerance 75.6% affirmed that in their opinion, the shutting down of the cults would respond to seeking the "public good" and not intolerance towards non-traditional religious groups. Those who mostly supported this position were women, 80.9%, surpassing men by 11%.

The upper class segment was the group that pointed more to the possibility of the motivation being intolerance. (31.3% of its members see it this way).

As far as the older group, there is an increase in the acceptance of the parliamentary motion seeking to put an end to cults. While the support of the initiative amongst those over 46 reaches 85.3%, it lowers to 65.5% in the case of youngsters between 18 and 25 years.

Despite the massive rejection of cults, for 38.9% of those surveyed, the possibility of terminating these organizations can redound to an assault against the freedom of worship.

Those who most insisted in this were men (41.2%), persons from lower social strata (41%) and those between 18 and 25 years of age (47.9%). As such, the profile of those that don't consider that it would be negative corresponds to women (36.8%), members of high class (34.9%) and those over 46 years of age (32.1%).

63% of those surveyed considered it the "duty of State" to intervene in cults that patronize sexual behavior considered immoral amongst their members, named "holy prostitution" by the members of parliament that investigated the phenomenon. The petitions for control were concentrated amongst the women, with 69.6% in favor of intervention, far from the 55.8% indicated by men.

The lower strata was the socioeconomic segment most convinced that the State cannot accept the "free sex" in cults (66.3% request intervention). The upper class was 11% lower on this point, traditionally reticent towards government control.

Once again, the curve descended amongst age groups. 76.3% of those over 46 required that the state curb non-traditional sexual behavior in groups. This figure lowers to 54.2% amongst youth of the same opinion.

My Kid? No way

Where the opinions start to balance out is when those surveyed were asked if they would allow one of their children to join one of these groups: 87:6% were opposed. On this item, the differences in responses between sex and social groups is very small.

In contrast, 29.2% of women believe that people who join these groups do so of their own free will, 28.9% of the upper class and 39.4% of those from 18 to 15 years of age.

The parents were willing to take responsibility for having generated the conditions that led to their children joining cults, since 87.6% admitted that they would also bear the blame for not adequately guiding their minors. The most open to acknowledging this responsibility were men (90.4%) and not women (85.1%).

In any case, 77.7% of parents say that, if necessary, the authorities will assist in getting their children out of these cults. The groups that showed the greatest tendency of soliciting help were women (80.9%), middle class (80.1%) and adults between 36 and 45 years of age (86.5%).

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