Thought Crime and the French State – Sott.net Investigated For Being a “Cult” by Toulouse Police

While we are not privy to the exact details of the complaint (we’ve asked, our lawyer has asked, but we’re not entitled to know) what we do know is that, since the day this jilted Frenchman’s former partner (who is a Sott editor) left him, (read all about him here) he has spent much time and effort in the re-dissemination of the lies of our very own long-term detractor and ‘sloozer’ (that’s a slow loser), Vincent Bridges.

Since Bridges has, over the past ten years, gone to unreasonable lengths to defame us as a ‘cult’, we assume (with justification as you’ll see below) that the specifics of our jilted Frenchman’s complaint to the Toulouse Police were that we, a little ol’ news website run by dozens of people around the world, are really, secretly, behind it all … A ‘CULT!’ His rationale? His ex-partner was a Sott.net editor, was involved in our forum and had worked on translations, and she also decided to leave him, ergo, she MUST be being controlled by Sott.net! And Sott.net must therefore be a CULT!

As you can see, it makes perfect sense.

Reactionary Laws and Convenient ‘Suicides’

It would all be rather funny (in a strange way) if it weren’t for the fact that the Toulouse police appear to be taking the situation seriously. Now why would they do that? After all, the claim came from a guy with a history of violence against women and ‘obsessive tendencies’ according to a court psychiatrist. Sure, the police may feel they are duty-bound to engage in an at least cursory investigation, but a cursory investigation of this claim, by any rational individual, would very quickly uncover the spurious and defamatory nature of the claim. So maybe we’re not dealing with a rational individual, or maybe the problem is more serious and concerns the way in which claims of ‘cult’ are received in France.

My point here is that it is highly likely that this outrageous and patently false denunciation was chosen very carefully by our jilted Frenchman because it seems that certain elements within the French authorities like nothing better than to engage in a little ‘cult hunting’ from time to time. Now, I want to be as fair and balanced as possible in my treatment of this topic, so I need to explain the above ‘cult hunting’ remark.

In 2001, the ‘About-Picard’ law was passed by the French legislature. The full title of the law reads ‘Loi n° 2001-504 du 12 juin 2001 tendant à renforcer la prévention et la répression des mouvements sectaires portant atteinte aux Droits de l’Homme et aux libertés fondamentales (‘Law number 2001-504 of June 12, 2001 intended to reinforce the prevention and repression of sectarian (cultic) movements that infringe on human rights and on fundamental freedoms’).

About-Picard was passed largely as a result of justified concern about ‘doomsday cults’, the most famous of which (in France) was the Order of the Solar Temple (OST). In 1994, 54 people (including children and infants) in Switzerland and Quebec, Canada, either committed suicide or were killed. The aims of the Order of the Solar Temple included: establishing “correct notions of authority and power in the world”; an affirmation of the primacy of the spiritual over the temporal; assisting humanity through a great “transition”; preparing for the Second Coming of Jesus as a solar god-king; and furthering a unification of all Christian churches and Islam. Members apparently believed that through their deaths they would “move to Sirius”.

One very curious aspect of the ‘Solar Temple suicides’ was the report that another massacre (allegedly related to the OST) took place during the night of the 23rd December 1995. According to the official report, 16 people were shot in a field, in Vercors, France, and their corpses burned. Authorities later claimed that 2 people shot the others and then committed suicide by firearm and immolation. Note that these ‘suicides’ occurred over 1 year after the main group of 54 suicides in Canada and Switzerland. As it happens, some very curious and disturbing things were happening in the months of December and January 1995 in France.

1) 11th July 1995 the French National Assembly sets up a Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France following the events involving the members of the Order of the Solar Temple in late 1994 in Switzerland and Canada. The Commission reports back in December 1995.

2) On December 15th 1995, a team of supposed French TV journalists visits an agrarian group/community that was growing ‘giant’ organic veggies without pesticides etc. The journalists ask the group if they can make a short film about their activities, assuring them that the report would be ‘friendly’ and about ‘organic farming’. When the farmers view the final edited report as it will later be broadcast however, the group are horrified to realise that sentences have been cut, questions and answers had been deliberately mixed up in such a way that the group look like total nutcases.

3) One week later, on December 22nd, the report of the Parliamentary Commission on Cults presents its report to the Parliament, and its list of 172 ‘cultic movements’ is ratified unanimously and published. Out of a total of 577, how many MPs were present? Seven. Furthermore, the 172 alleged ‘cultic movements’ are examined in just 50 minutes, or about 20 seconds to determine that each ‘movement’ was ‘cultic’.

4) One day later (December 23rd), those 16 corpses are discovered in the Vercors region. On the spot before everyone else, conducting 54 interviews in 48 hours, ‘directing the investigation’ and categorically informing the French public that we were dealing with a mass suicide is a government-appointed ‘anti-cult psychiatrist’.

5) 12 days later (January 4th) a major national television station broadcasts a prime time special program on cults. Two topics are dealt with: the so-called Vercors ‘mass suicide’ (allegedly associated with the previous year’s Order of the Solar Temple suicides) and the manipulated report on the agrarian group, who were condemned as a ‘cult’ for growing large vegetables. Of course, the government-appointed ‘anti -cult’ psychiatrist is given center stage on the programme. Strangely however, he forgets to mention that each of the 16 Vercors corpses all had several bullets and were burnt with a flame-thrower. That little detail would only come to light five years later.

On January 5th 1996, (capitalising on the ‘dangerous cults’ documentary the night before) the French gendarmerie and police raid numerous minority movements classified as ‘cults’ at 6am. The raids are conducted as a result of ‘rogatory commissions’ where the Ministry of Justice instructs the Public Prosecutor’s office to instruct local area judge to give the necessary warrants to the police or gendarmerie to carry out actions for which the PP’s office has no obvious justification. In this case the lack of justification is that no complaint of any kind has ever been made against any of the ‘minority movements’ to be raided. But here’s the problem; the ‘rogatory commission’ process, involving communication back and forth between the Ministry of Justice, the Public Prosecutor’s office, the local area judges and the police and gendarmerie takes at least 3 weeks. Which means the Ministry of Justice’s initial order to open an investigation was issued BEFORE the Vercors ‘mass suicide’. The ‘mass suicide’ that went along way in justifying, in the public mind, the TV show and the subsequent raids against the farmers.

Does anyone else smell something rotten here?

I am not suggesting that the Order of the Solar Temple was not an abusive cult, but something definitely seems a little too coincidental with the above series of events. And the implications of course, almost don’t bear thinking about.

Nevertheless, we at Sott.net can fully understand why a law, of some description, would be passed in an effort to deal with cases such as the OST, but the problem, as many critics of About-Picard have pointed out, is that even the wording of the title of the law – “intended to reinforce the prevention and repression of sectarian (cultic) movements that infringe on human rights and on fundamental freedoms” – is extremely vague as is the definition of the word “sectarian” (cultic). As a result, About-Picard is wide open to interpretation based on any possible bias of any state investigating body or individual.

Notable new points introduced by the law include:

‘In the case of certain crimes, the law extends legal responsibility from individuals to organizations (corporations, associations, and other legal entities…). Courts can order the dissolution of organizations if they or their executives have been found guilty of these crimes.’

The law has six chapters:

Chapter 1 says that a court can order the dissolution of organizations when they or their leaders have received sentences for specific crimes. These crimes include endangering the life or physical or mental health of a person, illegal practice of medicine, and fraud or falsification in violation of consumer-protection laws, among others.

Chapter 2 extends the responsibility for specific criminal offenses to organizations.

Chapter 3 specifies that a court may only order the dissolution if the sentence pronounced for the crime is at least 3 years in prison or a fine of 45,000 €.

Chapter 4 specifies that organizations that have had legal action taken against them or whose executives have been sentenced several times for the specified offenses, are forbidden to deal with young people and can be fined if they do.

Chapter 5 defines fraudulent abuse of a state of ignorance or weakness and gives supplementary punishments for organizations that engage in this sort of activity.

Chapter 6 specifies necessary modifications of the penal law.

Of note here is that the law does not define any new crimes, except in association with existing crimes, because any and all possible crimes that have been, or might be, committed by a ‘cult’ are already punishable by existing laws. The problem with About-Picard then is that it provides for the establishment of state-sponsored ‘inquisition-like’ groups tasked with ‘preventing and repressing so-called ‘cultic movements’. Groups like MIVILUDES.

21st Century Witch-Hunt

MIVILUDES stands for ‘Mission Interministérielle de VIgilance et de LUtte contre les DÉrives’ which translates as ‘Inter-ministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against any group that deviates from what is considered ‘normal’, and is a body within the French executive established by a presidential decree on 28 November 2002. To get an idea of how MIVILUDES operates, check out this short video.

Fenech has been at the forefront of action against ‘sects’ in France and has, as evidenced in the above video, shown a profound investment in the prosecution of anyone labeled a ‘cult’. He has made it clear that having ‘wrong beliefs‘ can get you put in prison or denied access to your children.

During a French TV show, Fenech was asked about the definition of a ‘cult’ and ‘cultic abuse’:

“We know what a cult is, in the common sense of the word. We know what it is … it’s a group that detaches itself… Ok. And a cultic abuse, a cultic abuse… today we have identified what a cultic abuse is … It’s a grouping which leads to what? To family breakups, to exorbitant financial demands, to dangerous therapeutic methods. It is organizations which are often in trouble with the law, which have an anti-social discourse. Here you have a number of criteria which allows us to intervene in order to exert an alert signal, and eventually take over the legal authority.”

Note that the mere existence of a “group” figures largely in Fenech’s definition of ‘cultic activity’.

Fenech himself was prevented from seeking re-election to the French parliament in 2008 due to his violation of campaign finance laws. He has also been implicated in the ‘Falcone Affair’ (weapons sales and smuggling to Angola). We believe there is a technical term for individuals who pretend to be crusaders in defense of some segment of society, all the while garnering money and power to themselves: ‘snakes in suits‘.

On November 10th, 2000, following the 1998 publication, in the Professional Association of Magistrates Review, of an article by Alain Terrail, the latter, as well as Georges Fénech as the director of the review, were judged guilty of “public racial insults”. Terrail had written in the union’s magazine: “Lévy goes to the oven so often, that in the end he ends up getting burnt”, an attack against the Magistrate Albert Lévy. Levy, it would appear, is Jewish, hence the conclusion by the court that Fenech’s sanctioning of an article referring to “ovens” and Lévy getting “burnt” was essentially racist. With the claim that anti-semitism is on the rise in France, it seems strange that French Jewish groups (as representatives of a minority religion) are not more pro-active in voicing concern about the policies of MIVILUDES and the attitude, approach and suitability of its president. One might even wonder about the ‘attack’ by MIVILUDES on Opus Dei, considering the barely-veiled pro-Catholic position of the former. Playing both sides against the middle perhaps?

My point here is that it is highly likely that our jilted Frenchman not only denounced us to the Toulouse Police, but also to MIVILUDES. Indeed, it is possible that the police opened an investigation at the behest of MIVILUDES. Of course, we can only speculate since we have been denied access to the initial denunciation.

The “Interro-Views”

In May this year, the Toulouse police interviewed the first Sott.net editor about what had already become known to them as ‘the affair’. Within a few months, three more mandatory ‘interviews’ followed. Each was an unsavory four hour-long ordeal, with the investigating officer – a female ‘Capitaine’ – making no secret of the fact that she personally thought we were a ‘cult’. Despite the fact that our first interviewee brought along 8kgs of documentation that detailed ALL of our operations, the honorable Capitaine refused to look at it. Instead, she preferred to pry, insinuate and not-so-subtly insult. Examples of the ‘questions’ and statements that were aggressively put to the Sott.net editors include:

‘It’s sounds like you’re influencing ‘Marie” – ‘you sound dangerous’ – ‘the way you live is strange’ – ‘is anyone at Sott.net HQ having sex?’ – ‘I’m Catholic and your meditation technique is blasphemous’ – ‘you’re a cult’ – ‘people come and stay with you regularly, some people come and go, that’s strange’ – ‘why do you buy gold?’ – ‘Anyone who buys gold believes in the end of the world’ – ‘why do you want to review the statement you made’ – ‘you’re taking orders from someone, aren’t you’

Given the fatuous nature of the questions and allegations thrown at our editors, we strongly suspect that the only information that the good Capitaine considers of interest to her investigation is the second-hand lies of the jilted Frenchman. Again, the fact that this source of the allegations is a man with a track record of violence against women, diagnosed by a court psychiatrist as having ‘obsessive tendencies’, is, apparently, of no consequence. And I can understand her position: after all, such considerations might threaten to ruin what has undoubtedly been, so far, a rather enjoyable ‘witch-hunt’.

Jail House Rock

At the time of writing, I myself am supposed to be under interrogation, having been ‘convoked’ a few days ago. Here’s the offending document:

Sadly, I was unable to make the appointment because I had to write this article. After hearing the details of the way in which these ‘interviews’ have been conducted so far, do I really need to explain why I have decided to refuse to accept the generous offer to spend four hours being subtly slandered and having my intelligence and integrity insulted?

Do I really need to explain why I am ill-inclined to spend four hours being asked precisely the same questions and giving precisely the same answers that have already been asked of and answered by the four previous interviewees? What normal person would consent to such treatment?

Under the pretext of a ‘friendly interview’ where I would offer ‘eye-witness testimony’, I would instead be subjected to what amounts to hostile interrogation concerning allegations that are clearly (and provably) a pack of lies. So, am I really expected, or required by law, to lend the good Capitaine a hand in her apparent bid to ‘fix the facts around the policy‘ – the ‘policy’ being that we are a ‘cult’ – hoping that if she just harasses us for long enough, someone will crack and ‘spill the beans’? Is that the idea? Am I expected to willingly take part in an ‘interview’ where I would be challenged to prove negatives until the cows come home? ‘When did you join the cult?’ ‘How many goats did you sacrifice on the altar this week?’ ‘Oh, and when did you stop beating your wife?’

The bottom line is this: the Police Judiciaire in Toulouse, and the honorable Capitaine, should have more than enough information (both that which they can discover on their own and that which we have already supplied – 8kgs of documentation and 16 hours of interviews) to conclude definitively that we have broken no laws and that the allegations against us are contemptible lies fabricated by a deviant individual. The only reasonable explanation I can think of for the good Capitaine requesting further personal ‘interviews’ is that, having found no evidence of a crime, she has decided to probe for ‘thought crimes’ or, in the terminology of MIVILUDES: ‘wrong belief’.

In short, this entire police investigation is, in our opinion, a farce, a sham, a burlesque mockery of justice and the rule of law. What I have written here thus far constitutes my ‘eyewitness testimony’ on ‘The Affaire’ and my public statement on the preposterous yet insidious lies of a jilted Frenchman. I have reached the point of no return.

Oh, and one more thing; while I have exercised my right not to attend the ‘interview’ today, apparently I can still ultimately be arrested and forced to attend (with a night or two in jail). If that happens, either to me or to any other Sott.net editor, I trust we can rely on your support to further expose and thereby correct what has already become a grievous miscarriage of justice and decency in the purported nation of Liberté, égalité, fraternité.