Throughout different political systems, social environments and times, the persecutions we will point out in the following document are rooted in one common denominator: being a yoga teacher – meaning the target becomes the person and the group that is different from the mainstream.

Historical facts that prove the continuation of the unceasing, abusive persecution of the yoga teacher Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru

It is a well-known fact that the practice of fraud in official matters was a widespread menace in the post-war Romania dominated by the communist regime.

Beginning with 1982, as a result of an ideological purge ordered by communist dictator Nicolae Ceausesu, all oriental spiritual practices such as yoga or martial arts were banned in Romania and the people teaching them were outlawed. On 27th August 1982, the National Bureau of the Executive Committee of the National Council emitted order 1253 by which all yoga and martial arts courses and practices were banned in any public place. The risks of being caught were many years in labour camps or imprisonment in very tough conditions. The trespassers were frequently discredited in the mass media and among their co-workers. This tactic was thoroughly documented by the researchers who studied the communist era.

Despite this situation, and not wanting to give in to threat and persecution, yoga teacher Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru continued to clandestinely teach yoga, therefore, facing severe consequences. In his views, helping people to achieve better health and quality of life should not be stopped for political reasons. He was arrested for the first time in 1984 and beaten; the books he had obtained with great sacrifice were confiscated on several occasions, never to be returned to him.

Communism and its regime ended in Romania in 1989 with a bloody revolution, after which a new era started for the country. However much of the communist nomenclature survived and metamorphosed into the people occupying key positions in the newly installed power of Romania.

The same political metamorphosis happened with the military and police officers who were in charge of the persecutions of the yoga movement and Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru.

After 1989, political scientist and human rights defender, prof. Gabriel Andreescu, was among the few independent researchers who were granted permission to study the archive of the former Secret Service known as “Securitate” during the communist era. He studied the repression of the yoga movement during the years of the communist regime, and also the continued persecutions after the fall of communism in 1989.

As demonstrated in his book MISA, An X-ray of a Repression, the same officers that took care of Mr. Bivolaru’s case before 1989 could be found in similar positions after 1989.

In these conditions, there is no surprise that the same methods - slightly adapted to the new social landscape after 1989 - were used in the recent years as a continued persecution of Mr. Bivolaru and the yoga school MISA, founded by him.

Beginning with 1990, in the first 14 years after the anti-communist revolution, there were over 12 000 mass media news broadcasts and articles launched in the public sphere. ALL OF THEM WERE OF A VERY NEGATIVE NATURE, containing severe accusations against Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru and the school he founded, MISA. None of these media outlets gave a right of reply, even if they were officially asked each time. The image created by these campaigns is not by coincidence the same as the image the Secret Service officers created of Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru and the yoga group during the communist time.

Accusations such as drug dealing, arms trafficking, paramilitary organisation, satanic sect, and human sacrifice were among the usual accusations that were perpetuated in the media and often supported by the comments of different officials. None of these accusations were ever proven by the police investigations or brought before any court of justice.

Students and friends of the Romanian yoga school sustained by MISA found themselves victims of another abusive and violent press campaign in 2003. Daily newspapers published detailed lists of people who had any contact with the yoga school. The lists, containing names, addresses and workplace information, came together with allegations of brain washing, immorality, usage of illegal substances etc., urging the population to aggressively react against these people. A large number of people lost their jobs because of this campaign, becoming “pariahs” in their surrounding society, and often rejected by their own families.

The virulence of the press campaign reached its climax in March 2004.

On 18th March 2004, the biggest police raid since 1989 was executed against 16 houses whose inhabitants were mostly yoga practitioners. The locations were violently attacked by more than 300 special troops, prosecutors and police officers.

The term “dangerous sect” was deliberately used to describe MISA yoga school. The media, therefore, supported the brutal police intervention, trying to persuade the public opinion that those raided and searched on March 18 were guilty of crimes.

Basically, the mass media was used to turn the population against MISA members and trigger a “witch-hunt”.

The ECHR ruled on 26th April 2016 that the operation on 18th March 2004 violated three articles of the Convention on Human Rights and ordered the Romanian state to pay 291 000 Euros to the 26 victims that complained about the raids. In its final decision, the court stated that “the information provided by the Secret Service to the special police troops indicated that they will be met with heavy armed resistance, usually reserved for drug dealers and organised crime environments. In reality, peaceful yoga practitioners were found at the locations. The violence and disproportionate use of force was a direct result of this misinformation from the state organisations”.

Same day, 18th March 2004, 17-year-old Madalina Dumitru was apprehended by masked men and, after being held for many hours at gun point, she was taken to the police station. There she was forced to write and sign a declaration that was later on used to incriminate Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru for having sex with a minor. The next day, 19th March, Madalina Dumitru returned with a lawyer but her testimony was no longer accepted as she was denying the content of her previous statement and accusing the state departments for their abusive behaviour.

The continuation of the persecution of yoga teacher Mr Bivolaru resulted in him leaving the country and seeking political asylum in Sweden. On 24th March 2005 he filed a request in the migration office of Malmo, Sweden and on the second interview, on 4th April 2005, Mr. Bivolaru was arrested at the request of the Romanian authorities.

After being kept in prison for almost 8 months, in strict isolation, at the request of the Romanian authorities (this fact itself represents a severe form of torture), Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru was granted the status of political refugee in Sweden, based on article 1 of the Geneva Convention of 1951.

The Swedish Supreme Court took the decision after a serious investigation in which the witnesses were heard and expert opinion presented.

After hearing the testimony of the alleged victim of Mr. Bivolaru, the judges concluded that Madalina Dumitru can be considered trustworthy and her testimony a valuable piece of information in the file.

From another perspective, the decision of the Swedish Supreme Court represents a confirmation of a high level of the continued persecution of Mr Bivolaru.

The complaints against the prosecutors responsible for the violent and abusive actions that started on 18th March 2004, filed by a group of yoga practitioners from MISA yoga school, reached to the Supreme Council of Magistracy of Romania. After an investigation, they ruled in January 2006 that there was no flaw in the prosecutors’ action in March 2004. Moreover, the Supreme Council of Magistracy stated that the images released in the media on the same day as the raids were fabricated by the yogis who dressed up in police uniforms and as special forces and staged the whole operation, beating their own colleagues. The Supreme Council continues to assert that the decision of the Swedish Supreme Court to grant political asylum to Gregorian Bivolaru was taken based on these fake images and other similar fabricated information.

See video, minute 7,54 – 9.30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3IBqYR7T5I

 

Sources from inside the government, police or Secret Service, constantly feed the journalists with intoxicating false information, manipulating many of them to become unconscious agents of some partisan interests. Never was an apology published after such information was proven to be false or wrong.

In the first days after 18th March 2004, the minor, Madalina Dumitru, was hunted by the Romanian media as the one who will bring down the “guru”. When she came forward stating that she is the victim of the prosecutors NO JOURNALIST WAS INTERESTED ANYMORE IN HER STORY.

In different moments of this ongoing persecution, several people lost their jobs without being able to tell their story or to look for some kind of justice.

As a result of increased international awareness on the case, in 2011, 2012 and 2013, dozens of MEPs and other EU officials requested information from the Romanian authorities. Reports and letters of support were sent to the Romanian government in order to help find a lawful solution to Mr. Bivolaru’s case.

What the Romanian authorities did? Skilfully falsifying facts, documents, for changing and then “disguising” all political persecutions into common crimes

The case however ended in the lower court with the complete acquittal of Mr. Bivolaru for all charges, on 23.04.2010. The Court of Appeal of Alba-Iulia rejected as ungrounded the appeal of the prosecutor’s office and maintained the acquittal of Mr. Bivolaru.

In an unusual chain of decisions, the High Court of Cassation and Justice of Romania (HCCJ) decided to quash the two previous decisions of the lower court of Sibiu and of the Court of Appeal of Alba-Iulia that were acquitting Mr. Bivolaru. The re-trial at HCCJ was a long chain of violations of the fundamental rights of Mr. Bivolaru, who was convicted in absentia. His request for giving a statement in front of an international commission was initially accepted by the judge and the procedure initiated with the assistance of the Swedish authorities. But in the end the verdict was given without waiting for the testimony of Mr. Bivolaru.

Despite all the findings of the Swedish Supreme Court, Romania continued the trial against Mr. Bivolaru without any investigation of the persecutions pointed out in the asylum decision from Stockholm.

It seems that ignoring the Swedish Supreme Court decision started to contaminate other states too.

In February 2016, France authorities arrested Mr Gregorian Bivolaru in Paris, during a book fest.

His arrest lead to conflictual application of the laws: European Arrest Warrant vs. Geneva Convention.

Not respecting the article 1 of UN, and the mutual recognition between EU member states, France extradited Mr Bivolaru to Romania in June 2016.

All the above mentioned has resulted in the jailing of Gregorian Bivolaru again for many months.

Some of these odd events are:  

The persecution of Mr. Bivolaru has continued in an uninterrupted line since the communist times.

The methods used for the persecutions in the old time have only adapted to the new social landscape, but are fundamentally the same:

• Manipulation of social environment
• Using the police and Secret Service for jobs that are politically motivated
• Suppressing all opposing opinions or facts
• Blocking the free expression of opinions
• Falsifying facts, documents, changing all political persecutions into common crimes
• Using violent methods of persuasion

The main target becomes the person and the group that is different from the mainstream.

The persecutions became obvious during the raids of 18th March 2004. The life of a minor was cynically used to build false evidence against Mr. Bivolaru due to a lack of any other results during the years of Secret Service surveillance.

The Swedish decision to grant political asylum to Mr. Bivolaru is at the same time an investigation from a high authority into the reality of the persecution he was subjected to.

Despite its value, the Swedish decision was ignored by Romania and the same attitude appeared in France, as a result of the influence of the biased attitude that is part of the persecution itself.

The use of European instruments such as EAW in order to bypass the Swedish asylum decision represents a form of prolonging the persecution of Mr. Bivolaru.

Being a forerunner in the revival of all health and spiritual aspects based upon yoga practice, yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru suffers the severe consequences of his stand.

Can we consider that, with no reason or explanation, the concept of "Criminal Law of the Enemy" is applied in the case of yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru?

The Criminal Law of the Enemy says that certain people, as enemies of the society (or the state), do not deserve the protections of the civil or penal law. The Feindstrafrecht Criminal Law of the Enemy allows every available means to pursue and punish those enemies. This concept was outlined in 1985 by the German criminal law professor and legal philosopher Günther Jakobs.

 

The obvious profile of the yoga movement in flagrant contrast with the way it is presented by police and authorities

The distortion of the reality is the most obvious when we compare the image constantly forced on MISA by the Romanian authorities and the profile the yoga movement has from the scholars who have investigated it.

Labels of “sect”, “promiscuous organisation”, and “organised crime group” are constantly placed on the name of MISA by the mass media and the authorities. Mr. Bivolaru is constantly presented as a “guru” and “sect leader” without him ever having claimed such a title, nor having a decision-making position in MISA since 1995. 

However, all the academic studies on the yoga school indicate a completely different image, the difference again underlining the intentional attempt to distort and manipulate the image of the yoga school in the public eye in order to justify the extreme measures that have been taken and which in reality represent a continuation of the persecutions.

The biggest Swedish expert on sects and cults, Rev. Karl Erik Nylund conducted an independent investigation on MISA and its international branches. The results were presented before the Swedish Supreme Court. He clearly stated that MISA and its international branches have a healthy approach towards spirituality that has nothing sectarian in it, while Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru is yoga teacher that has an authority based upon universal values.

In his words: “If MISA is not a manipulative and dangerous sect then what is it? I could say about MISA that it is a movement supporting a different way of life, alternative therapies, displaying strong Gnostic syncretism features. The basic ideas are reincarnation and self-transformation (the ability to transform oneself). A cult is a movement often emerging in a psychologically deprived environment, when people gather around a leader. MISA is a yogi movement where the participants aim at self-perfecting and improving their state of health and harmony through a lacto-vegetarian diet and yoga techniques.”

Regarding Mr. Bivolaru, Rev. Nylund’s conclusions are as contrasting compared with the image pushed forward by the Romanian authorities: “Gregorian Bivolaru DOES NOT claim to be in undeniable possession of the absolute truth. Together with other people, he is a spiritual guide and is convinced he is a man with a mission in the society. On the other hand, he displayed and still displays no political claims. If people will transform through the lacto-vegetarian diet and through meditation, this will occur gradually. Bivolaru’s power resides in his very humbleness. Therefore in the MISA case, we can find none of the criteria defining manipulative sects.”

How is it possible that the academic approaches contrast so much to the image imposed by the media through silent acceptance and sometimes with the active participation of the authorities? Are the authorities not supposed to be the best informed about their citizens? If there are such big differences, what legitimacy do they have? How can they not harm and persecute a group about which the very perception is so biased?