EU: Discrimination and intolerance in Europe raised at IRF Roundtable on FoRB in Washington
IRF online roundtable on religious freedom on 25 November with US State Dept and USCIRF representatives
By Hans Noot & Willy Fautré , directors of Human Rights Without Frontiers
Sweden persistently and willfully trying for 20 years to discriminate against Jehovah’s Witnesses
HRWF (25.11.2025) – In Sweden, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been victims of relentless discrimination by the State for a long time.
State funding has been purposefully denied to them on spurious reasons for 25 years.
Indeed, it was on 1 January 2000 that Sweden adopted the “Support for Religious Communities Act” offering state funding to dozens of faith communities, except Jehovah’s Witnesses despite that they, too, were legally entitled to benefit.
Two months ago, the head of the Agency for Financial Support for Faith Communities, the SST, stated in a radio interview that the legislation had been revised explicitly to prevent Jehovah’s Witnesses from qualifying for its benefits. Over the years, several regulatory adjustments have been introduced with the aim of excluding that religious community.
A similar statement was also made by a former Secretary of State for the Ministry of Culture, during a program of the Swedish Television, when she said:
“The current legislation [on state grants] has obviously not worked [since Jehovah’s Witnesses are eligible to receive state grants]. Therefore, we will also turn to the parliament with new legislation in this area to correct this.”
This public admission makes clear that the political authorities of Sweden have persistently and willfully tried for 20 years to discriminate against Jehovah’s Witnesses on this issue.
After more than twelve years of litigation and four Supreme Court rulings in favour of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Sweden was ultimately compelled to comply with the consecutive judicial decisions. The State was thereby, required to acknowledge that Jehovah’s Witnesses “met all statutory criteria” for access to public grants, just as roughly forty other recognised religious communities did. This occurred in 2019.
I publicly raised this serious instance of state discrimination at the OSCE’s Warsaw Human Dimension Conference in early October this year.
It is to be regretted that the European Union has not called to order one of its member states for this intentional discrimination.
Hans Noot, Associate director of Human Rights Without Frontiers
France: MIVILUDES condemned 6 times by the Administrative Court of Paris
HRWF (25.11.2025) – France is a source of major concern in Europe with regard to its treatment of religious or belief minorities as it finances state agencies and civic associations spreading hostility, fake news and hate speech towards them. Such practices have been condemned on six occasions by French courts this year.
A month ago, the French anti-cult state agency MIVILUDES whose official name is “Interministerial Mission for Monitoring and Combating Cultic Deviances” was ordered, after years of proceedings by the Administrative Court of Paris, to pay 1800 EUR to the Church of Scientology in France.
The charge was defamation of the Church of Scientology in two annual reports, in 2020 and 2021. MIVILUDES was also ordered to delete the disputed statements from its reports.
This is the 6th time this year that the state agency MIVILUDES is condemned by the Administrative Court of Paris.
On 11 July 2025, the MIVILUDES lost another case against Jehovah’s Witnesses and had to pay them as well 1800 EUR for financial compensation. The court also ordered to delete 11 defamatory statement from its annual report in 2021.
On 21 January, the MIVILUDES was sentenced again to pay 1800 EUR to the association “Kibbutz of Malrevers” and to delete the defamatory statements from its annual report.
In May, two other cases were lost by the MIVILUDES in cases filed by an NGO with ECOSOC consultative status at the United Nations.
The reason was that the MIVILUDES was denying the legal right of access to its administrative documents by the said NGO which wanted to investigate alleged suspicious practices in its distribution of grants to anti-cult civic associations regularly prosecuted for defamation.
An Evangelical Church has also filed a complain this year against the MIVILUDES on defamation charges in its annual report.
These are the reasons why we are concerned abour religious freedom in France and why we are busy drafting a petition to be addressed to President Macron of France for a review of the functioning of this controversial state agency.
Willy Fautré, Director of Human Rights Without Frontiers
