PARIS, France — In a report issued Feb. 7, the French government called on nations worldwide to stop the growth of religious sects and criticized the United States for offering too much religious freedom to “cults.”
“The confusion maintained across the Atlantic between religious freedom … and prevention, even repression, of punishable sectarian excesses does not make dialogue any easier,” said the report, issued by the Interministerial Mission for the Fight Against Sects.
The report identified about 200 sects in France, singling out the Order of the Solar Temple sect as particularly dangerous. Solar Temple adherents were involved in at least three mass suicide incidents in the mid-1990s in Switzerland and Canada.
The report also called for legislation against anti-democratic sects, as well as those advocating racist ideas and violating human rights.
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