Violence and persecution against minorities. Lirec's comment on the Uscirf 2024 report

 Violence and persecution against minorities. Lirec's comment on the Uscirf 2024 report

The Freedom Belief Conscience Study Center (Lirec) commented on the latest USCIRF 2024 Report as follows (see link here): “The Report should be read in its entirety as the causes of numerous serious and illegal persecutions of religious and spiritual minorities around the world have been identified. world are different, depending on the cultural and social context in which they occur.

In some cases they reside in the alliance between governments and paramilitary groups, or between governments and representatives of the majority religions. However, they are often produced thanks to the alliance between different agents: state authorities, anti-culture associations and networks operating all over the world and representatives of majority churches and religious institutions that consider the minorities present in their territory as a threat to their supremacy.

In this context, there are professional associations or individuals who have an interest in exacerbating conflicts by also filing lawsuits against groups labeled as "sects" and pressuring governments to enact repressive laws against "sects". The USCIRF report clearly denounces this phenomenon. It is a collective strategy that incites hatred against completely peaceful groups and acts as support for initiatives by individual parliamentarians or political parties aimed at discriminating against or persecuting completely peaceful groups. All these groups are the target of hate speech, which is also disseminated thanks to the complicity of the media. 

This phenomenon is very well illustrated in the report when we look at the case of France, which is the worst example in Europe. In Europe, France has been using for years, in its "war against sects", an anti-culture government agency, the MIVILUDES, known for the unreliability of the data it disseminates and transmits to the media and which regularly informs the OSCE about its activities. and violations of the freedom of religion and belief of minorities in France.

This topic was addressed in our recent conference "Hate speech: understanding and preventing a multifaceted phenomenon". The consequences when the targets are religious or spiritual minorities", in which we present a report on the reports received, in six years of activity, that fall within the definition approved by the Council of Europe in the Recommendation on combating hate speech adopted by the Committee of Ministers of 20 May 2022: Any speech that incites, promotes, spreads or justifies violence, hatred or discrimination against a person or group of people, or that denigrates them, on the basis of their real or attributed personal characteristics, or their status, such as race, color, language, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.  To call a group a "cult" means to incite hatred against an entire community, arousing general hostility from society and the authorities based on rumors or unfounded accusations. 

The most emblematic case of what could be the result of this strategy is that of the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, which saw in action the state authorities, the Russian Orthodox Church and Fecris, the most active anti-culture network in Europe (. watch the webinar). Significant and worrying is the escalation of violent actions against Jehovah's Witnesses around the world (San Salvo, Hamburg, Kerala), which the USCIRF collects in the statistics of the religious groups that have the highest number of victims due to their faith. As the 2024 report highlights, the number of victims of Jehovah's Witnesses has increased compared to the previous one.

A deeper reflection requires a broader examination of the process that causes rapes and generates thousands of victims guilty only of being believers. These considerations are supported by the reports that LIREC frequently receives from the communities with which it is in contact and also confirmed by other reports of the USCIRF, by numerous judgments of the ECHR and by statements that NGOs and other international institutions submit every year to the OSCE.

We are convinced that the only way to prevent and combat persecution is to recognize and unmask those responsible through correct information that neutralizes hate speech, reaches the general public and also plays an important role within institutions."

https://www.la-notizia.net/2024/05/10/violenze-e-persecuzioni-contro-le-minoranze/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2HOypSstgUmo_nSFCUje7Ss4jt7WLsG_X_EfO94q7faweFWN80cOphl24_aem_AYoOHMoOaQTzRS_rtssJCIMTzFcsqdr-ZPTtSeA1T6Wx_nG7V7tX38SOIZGOjmVYlEz8oc-C36CAJ0UE5tfNvHph#google_vignette