By Rosita Šorytė
European Federation for Freedom of Belief

ABSTRACT: Since the 19th century, there has been a public eager to read exposés of unpopular religious or esoteric minorities claiming they were engaged in illicit sex. Roman Catholics, Mormons, and Freemasons were among those targeted. This trend continues in contemporary media. It would seem that in sacred eroticism groups, which do not hide that they teach erotic rituals, there is less room for new and sensational revelations by the media. Nonetheless, based on the accounts of hostile ex-members (“apostates”), the media have produced accounts claiming that sacred eroticism is just a pretext for sexualabuse. While abuses are possible, the media treatment of these groups is biased and unilateral. The article examines cases where two sacred eroticism groups (whose leaders were jailed) were targeted, the Guru Jára Path and the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute (MISA).

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By Massimo Introvigne
CESNUR (Center for Studies on New Religions)

ABSTRACT: Based on the author’s experience as an expert witness in court cases and previous research, the article discusses the problems of studying and giving opinions on incidents where individuals or movements are accused of sex abuse within a ritualized context. Some accusations refer to imaginary or hypothetical abuses. In the case of spiritual movements teaching and practicing sacred eroticism, some ex-members reconstruct their experiences, often ex post facto, as abuses. Their voices should not be ignored. However, the view that no reasonable person would accept to participate in erotic rituals or submit to erotic initiations by a spiritual master unless she has been “brainwashed” derives from a general bias against new religious movements and misunderstandings about sacred eroticism.

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Article by Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers

HRWF (08.08.2025) – On August 1-3, 2025, the HJ International Graduate School for Peace and Public Leadership (HJI) convened its 3rd International Conference in New York on the theme of “The Root Causes of Contemporary Threats to Freedom of Religion.” 

On that occasion, HRWF presented a paper titled “The role of the media in the stigmatization of and hostility against some religious or belief minorities.”

Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) protects the individual right to freedom of religion or belief, to practice it either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest one’s religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.

The wording is very similar to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and so are other international instruments protecting freedom of religion or belief.

By Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers

On 30 June, Donatien Le Vaillant, the head of the MIVILUDES (Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and Combating Cultic Abuses) since 31 January 2023 “left” his duties, according to an official statement. This Deputy Inspector General of Justice officially “wanted” to return to his senior position at the General Inspectorate of Administration. However, according to the French weekly Marianne, his departure was not voluntary but rather an ouster, following a disagreement between Donatien Le Vaillant and his superiors over the development of the structure he headed. It could be a resignation.

At the end of May 2025, the Minister of the Interior (Bruno Retailleau), with the agreement of the Prime Minister (currently François Bayrou) and the President of the French Republic (Emmanuel Macron), asked Étienne Apaire, President of MIVILUDES, to merge MIVILUDES with another state agency—the Interministerial Committee for the Prevention of Delinquency and Radicalization (CIPDR)—and reduce its status to one of its departments. This did not please the head of the MIVILUDES, Donatien Le Vaillant, who preferred to return to his original position. The status of the MVILUDES within the architecture of state institutions and of supervisory political authorities has, since its creation by a decree of President Jacques Chirac on 28 November 2002, been the subject of diverse ambitions. To understand its full scope, it is necessary to briefly review some basic factual information.

The interdisciplinary conference organized by Exeter Law School, Dr. Vadim Atnash, MEJORA Foundation, and the Human Rights & Democracy Forum brought together scholars, religious leaders, and NGOs to discuss major challenges in religious freedom.

They examined government restrictions and discrimination, highlighting troubling examples: Norway deregisters peaceful religious organizations, and France finances anti-religious movements. Despite being in the 21st century, many governments still prosecute nonviolent religious activities of both traditional and non-traditional religious groups. Additionally, some countries enforce laws that prohibit atheism or restrict religious conversion, further limiting freedom of belief.

Social hostilities also remain a serious concern, particularly in Asia and Europe, where religious minorities often face violence and harassment. This ranges from armed conflicts and violent extremism to discrimination over religious attire, severely impacting targeted communities.

The conference also emphasized best practices such as policies promoting integration, equality, judicial protections, and interdisciplinary research to counteract state violence and social hostilities, fostering tolerance and respect for religious rights.

From the recent conference in the Human Rights Conference Limits of Restrictions: Religious Minorities in Europe and Asia – Law School, University of Exeter – 30 April 2025 Camelia Marin presented the following: 

I choose to present an emic view of the freedom of religion and belief problems encountered by members of schools that include, among their teachings, sacred eroticism. Not only do I have a long career as a religious liberty activist through the organization Soteria International, which relentlessly advocates for the rights of many different groups, but I am also a yoga practitioner in one of the different schools that follow the teachings of MISA, the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute. This group has encountered several legal problems, as have other movements that include in their teachings sacred eroticism.

I start with a quote from the book Sacred Eroticism, which Massimo Introvigne devoted to MISA in 2022: “The spiritual teachers who proclaimed the virtues of sacred eroticism rarely became popular with the media, police, and prosecutors.”

But who practices “sacred eroticism”? And what is the context of these practices?

Scholars typically include the schools of yoga that practice sacred eroticism under the label “new religious movements.” However, these yoga schools do not regard themselves as “religions,” although they include elements from various religious traditions assembled through a sort of syncretism. Their members come from different faiths, and some are agnostics. Based on my experience and the observation of other similar schools, they are united by standard practices and by “community rules,” such as non-violence, abstention from recreational drugs and alcohol, and helping each other. Perhaps “communities of belief” or “communities of conscience” are better labels than “new religious movements.”

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.