by Human Rights NGO from Denmark – Soteria International 30.10.2024

The secular milieu in France has a long tradition of being opposed to religious minorities and choosing a more restrictive and penal approach than most other European countries. In April 2024, France passed an amended anti-cult law after months of debate. The law’s name refers to “reinforcing the fight against cultic deviances” and introduces a new crime of “psychological subjection”. It is based on arbitrary and undefined terms. Scholars criticise it for infringing on freedom of speech as it restricts the possibility of criticising mainline medical treatments and seriously endangers freedom of religion or belief.1 In several ways, the law also gave a new and reinforced status to the French governmental anti-cult organisation MIVILUDES, Mission Interministérielle de Vigilance et de Lutte contre les Dérives Sectaires (Eng: Mission for Monitoring and Combating Cultic Deviances).

By Bitter Winter 

The undersigned scholars of religion and religious liberty activists appeal to the Georgian authorities to grant bail and house detention to Mihai and Adina Stoian, Romanian yoga teachers detained in Georgia in inhumane conditions, pending a final decision on their extradition to France.

On August 22, 2024, Mihai and Adina Stoian, who teach at Natha Yoga Center in Denmark courses following the principles of MISA, the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute, were arrested on the basis of French arrest warrants when they entered Georgia, as part of a tourist trip, through the border with Türkiye at Sarpi. They are accused of complicity in “crimes allegedly committed by MISA leader Gregorian Bivolaru in France.

The well known Beligium sociologist and human rights expert, Mr. Willy Fautre, has written and published two articles in The European Times that is related to ongoing the arrest and detaining of Mihai and Adina Stoian. Willy Frautre has safeguarded the human rights abuses towards yoga practitioners in MISA since the last decade. 

Willy Frautre writes:
On 20 and 26 December 2024, the City Court of Tbilisi held hearings to decide whether Georgia should extradite Mihai Stoian and his wife Adina arrested in August 2024 on the Turkish-Georgian border on the basis of an Interpol arrest warrant issued on France’s request.

A few days after mid-December, I happened to be in Tbilisi for The European Times to cover the unstable political situation and the demonstrations in the country following the contested results of the parliamentary elections and the subsequent election of a new contested pro-Kremlin president by the new parliament. On this occasion, I published two articles titled “GEORGIA: Election of an ex-footballer as the new president booed by demonstrators” and “GEORGIA: Police violence in Tbilisi while President Zurabishvili calls for quick EU actions”. I also used the opportunity of being in Tbilisi to meet state and non-state actors as well as lawyers involved in the case of the Stoians and to collect some unpublished information about the couple. A member of their family was also in Tbilisi.

At the end of the second hearing taking place after my departure from Georgia, the court found that a third hearing was necessary to try to solve a crucial issue: the interpretation of the debates and the translation of printed or written court documents in Romanian, as strongly required by Mihai, his wife and their lawyers instead of the English language imposed until then by the judicial authorities.

By Willy Fautre 

Published in The European Times 

On 20 and 26 December 2024, Tbilisi City Court held hearings to decide whether Georgia should extradite Adina Stoian and her husband Mihai arrested in August 2024 on the Turkish-Georgian border on the basis of an Interpol arrest warrant issued on France’s request.

A few days after mid-December, I happened to be in Tbilisi for The European Times to cover the unstable political situation and the demonstrations in the country following the contested results of the parliamentary elections and the subsequent election of a new contested pro-Kremlin president by the new parliament. On this occasion, I published two articles titled “GEORGIA: Election of an ex-footballer as the new president booed by demonstrators” and “GEORGIA: Police violence in Tbilisi while President Zurabishvili calls for quick EU actions”. I also used the opportunity of being in Tbilisi to meet state and non-state actors as well as lawyers involved in the case of the Stoians and to collect some unpublished information about the couple. A member of their family was also in Tbilisi.

At the end of the second hearing taking place after my departure from Georgia, the court found that a third hearing was necessary to try to solve a crucial issue: the interpretation of the debates and the translation of printed or written court documents in Romanian, as strongly required by Adina and Mihai Stoian and their lawyers instead of the English language imposed until then by the judicial authorities.

Published in the Journal of CESNUR

By Rosita Šorytė. 

ABSTRACT: Opposition to groups stigmatized as “cults” has (re-)emerged in recent years as a significant social force in countries as diverse as China and Argentina. The article examines six national situations—United States, China, Russia, France, Japan, and Argentina—and the different interests inspiring the local anti-cult campaigns. In its second part, the article argues that, while remaining different, anti-cult campaigns also have common elements and are supported by the lobbying efforts of diverse social actors such as the umbrella anti-cult federation FECRIS, the research consortium Invictus, the international diplomatic action of France, Russia, and China, international TV networks that have allied themselves with the anti-cult movements (primarily Netflix), anti-trafficking agencies interested in expanding their activity to “cults,” and private individual and corporate donors. While there is not a single “hidden hand” coordinating the anti-cult activities throughout the world, the role of these coordinating agencies should not be under-estimated. KEYWORDS: Anti-Cultism, Anti-Cult Movement, FECRIS, Invictus, MIVILUDES, Brainwashing.

By Willy Fautre. 

Source: Europeantimes.news

Full article here. 

On 28 November, it will be one year since a SWAT team of around 175 policemen wearing black masks, helmets, and bullet proof vests, simultaneously descended at 6 am on eight separate houses and apartments in and around Paris but also in Nice where Romanian yoga practitioners had decided to go into spiritual retreat. The police forces were then brandishing semi-automatic rifles, shouting, making very loud noises, crashing doors and putting everything upside down.

The November 2023 raids were not an operation against a terrorist or armed group or a drug cartel. They were raids targeting eight private places mainly used by peaceful Romanian yoga practitioners, but the police suspected these places to be used for illegal activities: traffic in human beings, sexual exploitation and forcible confinement.

by Bitter Winter

Mihai and Adina Stoian in happier times.

We, the undersigned, respectfully ask the authorities of Georgia, 

(a) to free on bail as soon as possible Mihai and Adina Stoian arrested in Georgia on August 22, 2024; 

(b) to refuse their extradition to France, based on the fact that their alleged “complicity in rape” would have been performed by “mental manipulation” and “abuse of weakness” of women they allegedly persuaded to embrace the beliefs of the Romanian yoga group MISA anchored in foreign philosophies and have private meetings with MISA’s founder;

considering 

• that “mental manipulation” and “abuse of weakness” are imaginary crimes and are therefore not part of international law 
• that they are defined as crimes in France but not in most other democratic countries
• that the Stoians’ case is a by-product of the prosecution of MISA’s founder Gregorian Bivolaru, who is currently in jail in France with several co-workers.

We are scholars in religious studies and new religious movements and human rights defenders with different levels of knowledge of MISA. Some of us personally know the Stoians and appreciate inter alia Mihai Stoian’s work through the NGO Soteria International in favor of freedom of religion or belief for all. 

By Massimo Introvigne
Source here. 

Georgian media coverage of the arrest of the Stoians. Screenshot.

On August 22, 2024, Mihai and Adina Stoian, well-known yoga teachers of MISA, the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute, were arrested when they entered in Georgia, as part of a tourist trip, through the border with Türkiye at Sarpi. Georgian media, obviously fed by the police and anti-cultists, reported that the Stoians are wanted in France and have also been prosecuted “in Finland and Romania for child prostitution and rape.” The latter information is false. As far as they know, the Stoians are not under any prosecution in Finland or Romania. Only when they were arrested in Georgia, they were notified of an international arrest warrant from the Court of Paris, France. Of what exactly are they accused?

Contents:

Articles

• Soka Gakkai’s Interpretation of the Principle “Three Thousand Realms in a Single Moment of Life” and Ikeda’s Climate Action. By Massimo Introvigne
• Ecoselves as Part of Ecosystems: What Can Daisaku Ikeda’s Philosophy and Practice Contribute to a Cultural Transformation Regarding Attitudes and Behaviors Towards Climate Change? By Olivia Fuchs 
• The Treasure Tower: The Peace Proposal 2020, Daisaku Ikeda’s “Last Word” on Climate Action. By Rosita Šorytė

Research Notes

• Sacred Eroticism or Sexual Magic? Liselotte Frisk’s Research on MISA by Massimo Introvigne 
• The Nylund Report of 2005 and the Frisk Study of 2019: Parallels and Differences. By Rosita Šorytė 
• Liselotte Frisk and MISA: An Emic View of a Yoga School and Its Perils. By Camelia Marin
  
  Read here

Article published on Eureporter.co 

The questions raised by this article are: 

• What is the origin of such a disproportionate police operation targeting yoga practitioners?
• Which groups are behind these allegations? 

Learn more about the French governmental anti-cult agency MIVILUDES. 

Read the full article here

More articles on the topic: 
https://europeantimes.news/2024/09/france-yoga-disproportionate-raids-abuses-settlement-scores/