Freedom of Religion or Belief · Spiritual Minorities · Global Advocacy
46 stories
Legal scholar Keith Thompson warns that Victoria's proposed inquiry into 'cults and organised fringe groups' threatens religious freedom and disregards legal precedent.
29 November 2025
English translation of the full CICNS interview with writer Christiane Singer (Paris, May 2006): society as socially programmed hypnosis, the French anti-cult witch-hunt, and spiritual experience as an inalienable freedom.
19 November 2014
Part 2 of the 2013 CICNS interview with sociologist Raphaël Liogier, in English: how asking why people believe gets read on French television as siding with evil, and the political cost Emmanuelle Mignon paid for questioning the anti-cult consensus.
1 July 2013
Part 3 of the 2013 CICNS interview with sociologist Raphaël Liogier, in English: why the cults debate is impossible on television. Anti-cult positioning is a cost-free political resource, and the thirty-second format forbids nuance.
1 July 2013
Part 1 of the 2013 CICNS interview with sociologist Raphaël Liogier, in English: the struggle inside the French State between the field ministries and the laïcité ideologues at Matignon, and the proposal of an independent observatory of spiritual minorities.
1 July 2013
Part 4 of the 2013 CICNS interview with sociologist Raphaël Liogier, in English: his individuo-globalism thesis — every age rests on a mythic ground, secularization does not mean less religion, and new religious movements draw on the emerging individual-global mythic soil.
1 July 2013
English translation of the 2012 CICNS health interview with journalist Sylvie Simon on the "cult" label, non-conventional medicine, and the media in France.
22 January 2013
English translation of the CICNS interview with French journalist Ivan Rioufol on France's anti-cult campaign, MIVILUDES figures and media conformism.
21 January 2013
English translation of the CICNS interview with Robert Ménard, co-founder of Reporters sans frontières, on French newsrooms, press freedom and the treatment of "cults".
19 December 2012
English translation of the CICNS interview with Caroline Yaffée, a Drôme mayor, on the 'cult' label, alternative medicine and Steiner schooling in France.
5 November 2012
English translation of the CICNS interview with writer Gilles Farcet: media-fed fear of "cults", the ambiguity of mental manipulation, and spiritual freedom.
5 November 2012
English translation of the CICNS interview with Patrick Le Berre, a former CEA research scientist, on the "cult" rumour and harassment he says he endured.
5 November 2012
English translation of Jean Baubérot's address at the CICNS colloquium: laïcité's Gallican roots, the 1905 law, medicine and school as sites of conflict with minorities of conviction, and the risk of charismatic domination everywhere.
24 November 2011
English translation of Raphaël Liogier's round-table extract at the CICNS colloquium: the arbitrary versus the authoritarian, unenforceable-yet-enforced parliamentary reports, and his first-hand account of testifying as an expert in a Soka Gakkai discrimination case.
29 October 2011
English translation of historian Anne Morelli's CICNS round-table remarks on the double standard between "cults" and recognised religions.
28 October 2011
A French doula's first-person account of a two-hour judicial-police questioning in Montpellier over suspected 'dérive sectaire' — CICNS testimony in English.
4 July 2011
First half of Raphaël Liogier's talk at the CICNS colloquium, in English: how Western Buddhism became a good religion while Soka Gakkai did not, three definitions of the word cult, and laïcité as a contested neutrality caught in a struggle of classifications.
19 April 2011
Second half of Raphaël Liogier's talk at the CICNS colloquium, in English: liberty defined from above (Rousseau vs Locke), education and medicine as the privileged conflict domains, the Longo Maï case, and the declamatory function of the anti-cult law.
19 April 2011
English translation of Laurent Hincker's address at the CICNS colloquium: defamation trials over the word 'cult', the 1995 criteria, the About-Picard law.
4 April 2011
Brahma Kumaris members in France describe fiscal audits, lost jobs, surveillance and an arson attempt after the 1996 parliamentary 'cult' list — CICNS video.
24 January 2010
Full transcript of the CICNS interview with journalist Jean-Luc Martin-Lagardette on France's anti-cult policy, the MIVILUDES, and the role of the media.
1 October 2009
English translation of the CICNS interview with American sociologist Stuart Wright on leaving new religious movements, apostates, and the 1993 Waco standoff.
3 July 2009
English translation of the CICNS interview with Susan Palmer, Canadian sociologist, on her fieldwork among France's listed "cults" and the About-Picard law.
3 July 2009
English translation of the CICNS interview with naturopath Philippe Dargère on administrative pressure, the anti-cult climate and alternative health in France.
9 January 2009
English translation of the CICNS interview with Laurent Ladouce of the Unification Church on the "Moon cult" media campaigns, deprogramming and the MIVILUDES.
12 February 2007
English translation of the short CICNS interview (2006) with writer Christiane Singer: the French anti-cult witch-hunt as a passing fever of morbid rationalism.
12 November 2006
English translation of the CICNS interview with French lawyer Bernard Biro on 'cult' accusations in the courts, the About-Picard law and defamation remedies.
11 November 2006
English translation of the CICNS interview with Bernard Montaud, founder of psychanalyse corporelle, on France's post-Solar-Temple climate around "cults".
11 November 2006
English translation of the CICNS interview with Québec journalist Eugénie Francoeur on new spiritualities in Canada, Britain and France.
11 November 2006
Kinesiology school head Jean-Claude Guyard on the Brittany trial, UNADFI and the anti-cult climate in France, in his 2006 CICNS interview.
11 November 2006
English translation of the CICNS interview with Grenoble lawyer Jean-Pierre Joseph on the 1995 French parliamentary report on "cults" and the events around it.
11 November 2006
Christian Tal Schaller's CICNS interview: the 1997 gendarmerie raid on his health institute, the trials that followed, and the "cult deviance" label.
11 November 2006
English translation of the CICNS interview with Bernard Renaud, esoteric bookseller and publisher, on how France's 1990s anti-cult campaign hit publishing.
10 November 2006
English translation of the CICNS video interview with Christian Paturel, the jurist vindicated by the European Court of Human Rights in Paturel v. France (2005).
10 November 2006
English translation of the CICNS video interview with sociologist Michel Maffesoli on postmodern religiosity, the wild sacred, and France's anti-cult scapegoating.
10 November 2006
English translation of the CICNS interview with Marseille lawyer Philippe Pérollier on French anti-cult case law, the 1996 list and the About-Picard law.
10 November 2006
English translation of the CICNS interview with sociologist Régis Dericquebourg on fieldwork among healing churches and France's anti-cult climate.
10 November 2006
English translation of the CICNS interview with pastor and jurist Dominique Kounkou on the "cult" label, African-expression churches and the About-Picard law.
9 November 2006
English translation of the CICNS interview with Jean Baubérot on the 1905 law, the MILS, the MIVILUDES, and religious minorities in France.
9 November 2006
English translation of the CICNS interview with lawyer Jean-Marc Florand on the legal void around "cults", the About-Picard law and France's anti-cult bodies.
9 November 2006
English translation of the CICNS interview with Pierre Barrucand, CNRS researcher, on the history of French anti-cult campaigns.
4 November 2006
English translation of the 2006 CICNS video interview with French journalist Sylvie Simon on the branding of alternative health practices as 'cults' in France.
4 November 2006
Full transcript of the CICNS interview with sociologist Massimo Introvigne on the history of brainwashing theory, MK-ULTRA, deprogramming, and anti-cult laws.
1 November 2006
Full transcript of the CICNS interview with sociologist Raphaël Liogier on French laïcité, state neutrality as intervention, and how 'good' and 'bad' religions are classified.
1 May 2006
Full transcript of the CICNS interview with historian Anne Morelli (ULB) on who decides the label 'cult', media treatment of religious minorities, and freedom of conscience.
1 November 2005
Full transcript of the CICNS interview with ethnologist Maurice Duval, in English: his four-year field study of the Mandarom, the censorship that followed, why the word 'cult' has no sociological meaning, and the manufacture of collective fear.
1 March 2005