The U.S. State Department’s July-December, 2010 International Religious Freedom Report on Armenia says that the country’s government “generally did not enforce existing legal restrictions on religious freedom, although there were reports of societal abuses and discrimination based on religious affiliation, belief, or practice.”
At first glance this can seem positive, unless you look closely at the religious minorities, which ruin the moral principles, turn people into zombies and tear the country apart. People’s simple wish to live better it being masterfully used by religious groups’ leaders, who have perfected the tools of pressure on the public and created a unique structure of psychological fraud.
The trump card the sects are using in most cases is proclamation of new world order with those ordained having place in it. However, often seemingly harmless calls to prepare for the end of the world end up with great sacrifices, sometimes human.
And so, what is the rationale behind mass “brainwashing”, manipulating their desires and actions? Firstly, sects are strong hierarchical structures and commercial organizations at the same time. Behind their spiritual enlightening activity, sects get unprecedented financial turnover and engage themselves in the country’s political games becoming their significant actor.
Europe, particularly France, Spain, Belgium and Germany were the first to unlash war against sects after their destructive effect on the public life.
Germany was the pioneer to fight against religious minorities back in 1997 with the Federal Government setting up special commission at Bundestag on investigating the sects’ and psychogroups’ activity. The focus of the commission was largely on the scientology church, operating in Germany.
On May 31, 2001 the French National Assembly adopted a law allowing courts to dismiss any movement recognized as a sect, the members of which were engaged in swindling, abuse of trust, illegal medical activity or unconscientious advertising.
However, with banning sects, European states, including France, have not become totalitarian regimes or countries infringing upon human rights.
What then keeps Armenian authorities from following their example? Is it the “excessive” sense of “justice” towards sects? Or is it the commitment to American values, which are hardly close to Armenian mentality in their spirit?
The irony of close relationships between Armenian authorities and Armenian Apostolic church on the one hand and the tolerant and perhaps even “timid” attitude towards sects on the other hand, is far from being explicable, thus leaving room for profound thinking.
