Freedom of Religion or Belief · Spiritual Minorities · Global Advocacy
News and analysis on freedom of religion or belief — covering discrimination against spiritual and religious minorities, anti-cult movements, and government inquiries worldwide.
CICNS · 16 July 2026
English translation of the CICNS video interview with Jean Baubérot, historian of laïcité, on the 1905 law, the MILS and the MIVILUDES, and equal liberty for religious minorities in France.
Parliamentary and executive inquiries into religious movements and minority faiths.
Organisations and campaigns that oppose new or minority religious movements.
How news coverage and public discourse shape perceptions of spiritual minorities.
Individual legal cases and prosecutions involving members of minority faiths.
Legal frameworks, rights instruments, and court decisions on freedom of religion or belief.
What a religions scholar, a legal scholar, and a Christian legal advocate say about Victoria's inquiry into "cults and organised fringe groups" — its origins, the definitional problem, and the religious-liberty stakes.
4 July 2026
Freedom for Faith’s Mike Southon warns Victoria’s inquiry into “cults and organised fringe groups” cannot define a cult without sweeping in mainstream churches — and urges lawmakers to prosecute illegal acts, not legislate belief.
6 January 2026
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
Part 2 of Bernard Doherty's analysis: "cult" is used so loosely in Victoria's inquiry that most Australian churches and faith communities could be targeted — a threat to religious liberty far beyond the unpopular few.
15 November 2025
Part 1 of Bernard Doherty's analysis: Victoria's 2025 parliamentary inquiry into "cults and organised fringe groups" is far from unprecedented — Australian anti-cult inquiries since the 1963 Anderson Inquiry have nearly all failed.
14 November 2025
CICNS's year-by-year chronicle of the anti-cult struggle in France: laws, parliamentary reports, court cases and media campaigns from 1893 to the 2010s.
2 April 2015
CICNS's account of the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidians at Mount Carmel: the ATF raid, the 51-day standoff, the final assault, and the media narrative.
1 January 2008
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 'sect', media treatment of religious minorities, and freedom of conscience.
1 November 2005