Call for Parliament to adopt middle path on religious cults

Date: 02/07/1998

By Rory Watson

MEPs will be told later this month that there are no grounds for introducing a common European policy or for establishing a special European agency to deal with religious cults and sects.

The advice will come from Austrian Socialist MEP Maria Berger. She has spent the past year and a half examining such groups and how to respond to them, in the wake of media reports of horror stories linking them to brainwashing and mass suicides.

Her pan-European inquiry has been mirrored in France, Germany and Belgium, where parliamentary approval has been given for national investigations into the activities of cults and the threat they pose to society and the public.

Berger is asking the European Parliament to steer a middle path which respects the freedom of expression of those who wish to join alternative organisations, while ensuring that these observe the law both in the treatment of their own members and towards society at large.

She is recommending that action should only be taken against cults “if they affect people's physical and mental integrity or social and financial standing”, and penalties only imposed if they indulge in illegal activities.

Member states where complaints about the behaviour of cults are heard most loudly are advised to provide unbiased information, education and advice services, particularly for young people and their families, so that individuals can make a free and informed choice on whether to join, or to leave such organisations.

The European Commission is also likely to be asked to use its consumer protection powers to establish whether citizens need to be safeguarded against abuses in the “psychological services market”.

Berger's report underlines just how little documented information there is in the Union on membership of cults and how unevenly spread the phenomenon is. Authorities in Greece, Sweden, Portugal, the Netherlands and the UK were all unable to provide any specific information.

In Belgium, there are 150 cults which the authorities recommend should be kept under observation, while in France the intelligence services have counted 172 similar organisations.

But these are considered parent bodies. If subsidiary branches are included, the figure rises to 800 groups with a total membership of 160,000 and a further 100,000 sympathisers.

In Austria, some 50,000 people are believed to belong to a cult, while the number climbs to 300,000 in Spain.

In Germany, where interest in new religious movements is most marked, more than 1 million people are estimated to be current or previous members or to have attended a cult event at least once in their lives.

It is for this reason that the Austrian Euro MP is recommending that the Commission should survey all existing and future Union member states to establish a clear picture of the number of cults and the size of their membership.