The CSA Replies to the CICNS about a Programme on "the Cults"

The CSA Replies to the CICNS about a Scandalous Programme on “the Cults”

CICNS (May 2011)

The ritual of television programmes on the subject of “cults” is a frequent one, it confers the power to divert the general public’s attention from the real problems of our society, to flatter the base instincts of discrimination, and to pay homage to the god Audimat. We even devoted a complete video report to a Jean-Luc Delarue programme emblematic of the media abuses committed against the backdrop of the anti-cult fight.

On 16 December 2010, we sent a letter to the CSA, questioning it about the programme “Toute une histoire: they were snatched by a cult, how can they be freed?” presented by Sophie Davant on 9 December.

We reproduce our letter below, together with the reply we were given. The link at the bottom of this page completes the quick panorama of the lamentable media treatment of this subject.

For the attention of Michel Boyon,

President of the Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel

Tour Mirabeau

39-43, quai André-Citroën

75739 Paris cedex 15

Subject: Request for intervention for ethical misconduct and harm to the security and dignity of legal entities and natural persons following the broadcast of the programme “Toute une histoire” - They were snatched by a cult, how can they be freed, Thursday 9 December 2010, on France 2.

Mr President,

The CICNS is an independent association whose object is to bring balance to the debate on the place of the new spiritualities[1] in French society.

The broadcast of the programme “Toute une histoire” - “They were snatched by a cult, how can they be freed”, Thursday 9 December 2010, on France 2, constitutes a harm to the dignity and security of many people and associations and a serious breach of journalistic ethics.

It begins with the assertion of a fanciful and alarmist figure, peddled essentially by the MIVILUDES, resulting from no serious study and based essentially on complaints without any legal outcome and on rumours, according to which, to take up the text that can still be read on the page of the programme’s site, “500,000 followers have let themselves be shut in, little by little, in beliefs with dérives sectaires”.

The programme’s first failing is partiality. None of the people attacked was present, or represented, any more than their points of view were mentioned. The caricature of their beliefs or practices that viewers were treated to cannot be considered a counterweight to the accusations levelled against them.

The subterfuge, certainly intended as legal cover, which consists in not naming the persons or groups while describing them sufficiently for them to be able to recognise themselves, as can their relatives, neighbours, administrative, commercial or other contacts, is hypocritical and should not prevent you from intervening.

There has been harm to the dignity and security of persons, as happens with every programme of this type when it takes up the subject of “cults”. Beyond the people directly implicated, the harm is done, through an amalgam maintained by the anti-cult diatribe, to a significant part of the French population which, legitimately and without breaking the law, takes an interest in (or adopts) alternative practices of health, education or spirituality.

We have dissected and analysed a certain number of programmes, notably Jean-Luc Delarue’s previous programme[2] on the subject, and noted in them flagrant incitements to discrimination and to the commission of illegal acts. That analysis forms an essential part of the third part of our documentary “Anti-cult France, an inventory - a plea for individual liberties”, which you will find enclosed with this letter.

The harm to the security of these minorities is not a figment of the imagination but an observed reality, of which we have gathered a great number of examples: public insults, defamation, job losses, damage to buildings, stone-throwing, bomb attacks, arson, violent and abusive police raids, acts in which the media’s share of responsibility is beyond doubt.

A few of these cases are recounted in parts 1 and 2 of our documentary.

The high-audience programmes on the “cults” in the style of the “Toute une histoire” of 9 December, because they drag people downwards, ought to disappear from the schedules of France Télévision.

Thanking you for the attention you will be good enough to give this letter, we beg you to accept, Mr President, the expression of our highest consideration.

[1] At the CICNS, the expression “New Spiritualities” designates any group with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic vocation which aspires to answer honestly the essential questions man asks himself, and to improve individual existence and the societies in which we live.

[2] “Ça se discute”, France 2, 19 September 2007 with Jean-Luc Delarue: “New cults, new gurus: are we all manipulable?”

Read also:

“Sophie Davant shaken by a cult”, headlines this “journalist” about our letter (he calls us the “council of the spiritualities of France”)!

At the same time, the CSA finds degrading a certain representation of Polynesian culture on television (on the basis of article 9 of the channel’s convention, which prescribes “ensuring respect for the public’s different cultural sensibilities and taking into consideration all the cultures that make up the national community”)… which, apparently, does not apply to the systematically defamatory presentation of spiritual minorities.

Link to the CSA’s page summarising their reply