Cult Justice - France

AIX-EN-PROVENCE (Bouches-du-Rhône), 16 mai (AFP) - Un adepte de "La famille", association qui a succédé à la secte des "Enfants de dieu" dissoute en 1978, a été condamné mardi par le tribunal correctionnel d'Aix-en-Provence à 18 mois de prison avec sursis pour incitation à la corruption de mineur, a-t-on appris mercredi de source judiciaire.

Le tribunal a assorti la peine d'une mise à l'épreuve de 2 ans avec obligation de soins. Il a également déchu le prévenu de son autorité parentale.

Le substitut du procureur, Annie Brunet-Fuster, avait requis 18 mois de prison avec sursis.

Le prévenu, qui reconnaît appartenir à la secte, était poursuivi pour avoir incité à la débauche son fils de 8 ans en le conviant notamment à assister aux ébats de jeunes enfants d'un couple d'amis, également adepte de la "Famille".

La vidéo de cette scène et une autre, filmée par le prévenu, montrant son fils nu dans une position équivoque, avaient été saisies par la police lors d'une perquisition.

Dans son réquisitoire, le procureur a rappelé que la secte pratiquait le "flirty fishing", consistant à utiliser les relations sexuelles comme moyen de prosélytisme ou pour obtenir des avantages pour la communauté. La "Famille" considère en outre les relations sexuelles, notamment entre enfants, comme la meilleure façon d'atteindre les cieux.

La mère de l'enfant et l'union nationale de défense de la famille et de l'individu s'étaient constituées parties civiles.

A member of "The Family" an association which derived from the cult "Children Of God" dissolved in 1978, was condemned Tuesday by the Criminal Court of Aix-en Provence (Bouches-du-Rhone) to 18 months in prison with suspended sentence for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, judicial sources said Wednesday.

The court reduced the sentence to 2 years of probation with the obligation to seek treatment. It also deprived the subject of all parental rights.

he assistant DA Annie Brunet-Fuster had sought a penalty of 18 months in prison with suspended sentence.

The guilty party who recognizes his membership in the cult, was charged for encouraged the delinquence of his 8 year old son notably by encouraging (sexual) interplay with the children of a couple of friends, also members of the "Family".

A video of this scene and another filmed by the guilty party showing his son nude in a dubious position, was siezed by police during a search.

In his summation, the DA reminded that the cult pacticed "FFing" which consisted of using sexual relations as a means of proselytizing and to obtain advantages for the group. The Family also considered sexual relations, particularly those of children, to be the best way to get to heaven.

The mother of the child and the nation union for the defense of the Family constituted the civil party (prosecution).

This conviction comes as the result of a long procedure which began in 1991 with an investigation into the cults activities by the gendarmes (state police) in 2 villages of Bouche- de-Rhone.

22 members of the community, were accused in 1993 for "aggravated proxenetism" (pimping), "violent child abuse", and "confining and corruption of minors". Charges were dropped in January 1999 due to a lack of proof.

After appeals by the civil parties the anullation of charges was confirmed in February 2000 except for the case of the recent conviction for which there were sufficient charges.

Note from webmaster: Every once in a while we get people masquerading as ex-members writing in, trying to slip in a pro-TFI version of events and erode our statements. In this case "Alain" used our unmoderated forum, Soap Box, posting at the very bottom of the page—probably in the belief he would be instantly published without hindrance, and that his post would remain online, undetected and thus unchallenged.

Posted by Alain on July 09, 2009 at 23:38:00 at Soapbox
Re: Please dont mutilate my language

To the author of the following piece of fiction
http://www.exfamily.org/cgi-bin/gf.pl?fmt=dyn&t=articles&m=1&s=&r=art/misc/cult_justice.shtml

When attempting to create a fictional document in French you may consider the following guidelines.

a)Learn French
b)Learn to spell/type (I just can't figure out if they are typo's or spelling mistakes)

While i have to qualms whatsoever with discrediting The Family/Children of God the use of such badly made, or indeed ANY fabrications is counter-productive, and only serves as evidence to discredit those with genuine claims or greviances.

Any Person with even so much as a basic grasp of the french language will easily note the many errors contained in your document. (ex: spelling mistakes, incorrect conjugation and gender use, complete omission of accents ex. é, è, à, etc..., incorrect use of words, and incorrect sentence structure) Is is clear that the "French" version was "translated" from the English version rather than the other way around. This is demonstrated by many of the terms in your document making sense in English but none at all in French. The most glaring example to this is the title of the document. while in english "Cult justice" could well fit the instance of a cult receiving its due, your litteral translations of "justice-secte" would rather describe a cult determined to uphold justice.
Also using the name of the General prosecutor of Monaco as your fictional "assistant DA" is not exactly a smart move. For your information Monaco has its own judicial system which makes your error akin to naming Nicolas Sarkozy as the British prime minister.
Also your reference to the 1993-2000 case is incorrect in that while you state the charges were "dropped" on "insufficient" charges. In reality the case, as well as the appeal lodged by the UNADFI were DISMISSED for having been unable to turn up ANY concrete evidence over the span of several years.
While the outcome of the 1993-2000 case is embarassing for the anti-COG community, attempting to doctor the facts will only increase the shame and damage our credibility.

Once again please realise the damage that articles such as yours will do to the vast majority of those of us who do have genuine articles to present.

PS

If you would like me to point out the specific instances of the errors please feel free to email me.

Posted by WC on July 10, 2009 at 15:21:56
No fabrications. Your agenda on the other hand is questionable...

Dear Alain,

Thank you for your email. We certainly appreciate your pointing out the errors you found, as exFamily.org endeavors to provide accurate information to the public.

Going over the article again, I can only find mistakes obviously due to manual typing, and perhaps lax attention to detail--omissions of accents and some missing or incorrect letters. The article you refer to is a replication of something that was found online at another news site concerned with cults and sects, probably one similar to this one: [ http://antisectes.net/lafamille.htm ]. It was copied onto our site around the time of its launch. Unfortunately we did not have the resources to authenticate the document at the time, but the source was credible and trustworthy and we decided to copy-paste it onto our site.

In order to correct the errant document, I would of course welcome your further input re. specific instances or errors. I would also like to get your assistance with the following questions:

Is the document at [ http://www.antisectes.net/lafamille.htm ] accurate in your opinion?
As to the "fictional" Annie Brunet-Fuster--what are your reasons for asserting this? Do you mean that since Annie Brunet-Fuster was the General prosecutor of Monaco she could not possibly have served in the Criminal Court of Aix-en Provence (Bouches-du-Rhone)? I find evidence to the contrary, that she has in fact served in Aix-en-Provence as well: [ http://www.jac.cerdacc.uha.fr/internet/recherche/Jcerdacc.nsf/
NomUnique/9790BD10FEC4D852C12568D30045B024/$file/
TGI%20d'AIX%2017.12.98.pdf ]
As to the nuance of the case being "dismissed" vs. "charges dropped," could you provide any reference(s) for this? Could you specify why this distinction is important and not just a minor question of perspectives?
You mention that "justice-secte" is better translated as "a cult determined to uphold justice" rather than the potentially ambiguous "cult justice." The word "justice" implies equilibrium. Is this not also a question of potentially-different interpretations borne of perspectives?

You mention your willingness at "discrediting The Family/Children of God," your support of those with "genuine claims or greviances" (correct selling is "grievances" FYI) and identify yourself, together with exFamily.org, as part of the "anti-COG community." You further state your concerns about our "embarrassment," "shame" and "our credibility."

Please allow me to assert that it is not the mandate of exFamily.org to be "anti-COG" or "discredit" anyone, but our main focus is rather to credit the group with truthful facts about its deeds and doctrines. It is also our mandate to provide a voice for perspectives and experiences with the group, which it has historically preferred to discredit and ignore. And further, we do not feel any "embarrassment" nor "shame," much less the need to reduce or defend any such said "embarrassment" or "shame" for our mandate.

May I ask who you are in relation to the supposed "anti-COG community" and what efforts you have put forth re. credible exposes of facts ("genuine articles" as you say) surrounding The Family International, etc?

Probably in your rush to find fault, you chose to post on Soapbox--our only unmoderated forum--believing that your complaint would be published instantly. Soapbox, however, is a political forum. If you wish to reply to this please use the genX board.

Best Regards,

WC for exfamily.org

Pas fabriqué. Vos intentions, par contre, semblent douteuses...

Cher Alain,

Merci pour votre courriel. Nous apprécions grandement que vous nous informiez des erreures que vous trouvez sur notre site et vous assurons qu'exFamily.org fait tout son possible pour fournir au public des informations exactes.

En relisant l'article auquel vous faites référence, je ne peux qu'y trouver des erreures sans aucun doute dues à une transcription manuelle laxiste (omission des accents et de quelques lettres, voire changement de lettres). La copie originale se trouve sur un autre site d'information sur les sectes similaire au nôtre: [ http://antisectes.net/lafamille.htm ]. Le texte a été recopié sur exFamily.org à peu près au moment où ce dernier fut lancé sur internet. Malheureusement, à cette époque, nous n'avions que peu de ressources pour procéder à l'authentification du document mais le site sur lequel il fut trouvé étant crédible et fiable, nous avons donc décidé de le faire également paraitre sur le notre.

Afin de corriger les fautes du présent document, je vous encourage bien entendu vivement à nous faire parvenir vos corrections. Je me permets de plus de vous poser les questions suivantes:

D'après vous, le document sur [ hl('http://www.antisectes.net/lafamille.htm'); http://www.antisectes.net/lafamille.htm ] est-il correct?
A propos de la personne "inventée" que serait Annie Brunet-Fuster: quelles sont vos raisons pour déclarer ceci? Voulez-vous dire par là qu'étant donné qu'Annie Brunet-Fuster était Procureure Générale à Monaco elle ne pouvait pas exercer au Tribunal Correctionel d'Aix? Pouvez-vous prouver ceci? Moi-même, j'ai trouvé la preuve qu'elle avait également exercé à Aix sur la page suivante
:http://www.jac.cerdacc.uha.fr/internet/recherche/Jcerdacc.nsf/
NomUnique/9790BD10FEC4D852C12568D30045B024/$file/
TGI%20d'AIX%2017.12.98.pdf
Concernant la nuance entre "fin de non-recevoir" et "écarté", pouvez-vous nous présenter des références à ce sujet? Pouvez-vous nous spécifier pourquoi la distinction est importante et non pas seulement une simple question de point de vue?
Vous écrivez que l'expression "justice-secte" définit plus "une secte déterminée à faire respecter la loi" que l'ambigüe "cult justice". Le mot "justice" implique équilibre. N'est-ce donc pas là aussi sujet à interprétation?

Vous exprimez votre volonté de "discréditer La Famille/Les Enfants de Dieu", votre soutien à ceux qui ont de "véritables revendications ou griefs" (en anglais "grievances" et non "greviances") et vous vous définissez comme faisant partie de la "communauté anti-COG" avec exFamily.org. Vous exprimez de plus vos inquiétudes quant à notre "honte" et "notre crédibilité".

Je peux vous certifier que la mission d'exFamily.org n'est pas d'être "anti-COG" ou de "discréditer" qui que ce soit. Notre but principal est plutôt de créditer le groupe de ses actions et doctrines en rapportant des faits précis. C'est aussi notre rôle de donner une voix à des perspectives différentes et aux expèriences dans le groupe qui ont jusqu'ici été discréditées et ignorées par lui. Enfin, nous n'avons aucunement "honte", et encore moins le besoin de minimiser ou de défendre un tel sentiment dans notre mission.

J'aimerais vous demander qui vous êtes en relation avec la supposée "communauté anti-COG" et quels efforts vous avez apporté pour exposer, par exemple, des faits sur La Famille (vous faites mention d'"authentiques articles")

Peut-être que dans votre précipitation à trouver des fautes, vous avez choisi d'écrire votre message dans notre "Soapbox", seul forum sans ingérence, en pensant que celui-ci paraitrait instantanément? Soapbox étant néanmoins un forum politique, nous vous conseillons par conséquent, si vous désirez répondre à ce message, de le faire en utilisant le forum genX.

Sincères salutations,

WC (exfamily.org)

Posted by MG on July 14, 2009 at 02:22:13 on GenX

In Reply to: Re: Really? posted by WC on July 13, 2009 at 07:56:13:

About Alain

As a French speaker, as well as an English one, when I first read Alain's post I saw that most of what was wrong in the article were missing accents. I was able to quickly correct them by copy and paste into Word using the French spell check (great time saver. Then I read it to check out his allegation that the article was something translated from English. Absolutely not. I'm fluent in French and used to reading a lot in French, the language of the article is typical French news genre.

Then, in order to double check, after doing my own corrections, I went to the antisecte.net website to see the original version of the article (link below) and it was exactly the same as my correction.
http://antisectes.net/lafamille.htm)

Posted by WC on July 14, 2009 at 12:14:53
Pas fabriqué!

Yes, the language of the article is so typically journalistic French that it couldn't have worked to translate it from English. I remember noticing that the article was missing French characters when I first saw it, but forgot to get back to it. It just wasn't on my list of priorities. Now 8 years later I get this rude reminder, heh! If I manage to find the time later today I will update the article with correct French spelling

JUSTICE-SECTE (CULT JUSTICE)

JUSTICE-SECTE