EU: Launch of the Central Europe Forum for FORB in Washington DC (3)
Contributions of Peter Zoehrer, journalist and co-founder of FOREF (Austria) and Kristyna Tomanova, psychologist and representative of InterBelief Relief (Czech Republic)
By Willy Fautré & Hans Noot, Director and Associate Director of Human Rights Without Frontiers
HRWF (11.02.2026) – On the occasion of the launch of the Central Europe Forum for FORB, sponsored by Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF) on 4 February in Washington DC, Peter Zoehrer (Austria) and Kristyna Tomanova (Czech Republic) shared some views about an important issue: freedom of conscience and thought.
“The sect stigma must stop in Central Europe,” Peter Zoehrer
Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, defenders of human dignity,
The moment to launch this Central European Forum for Freedom of Religion or Belief is not just appropriate — it is urgent.
We focus on Central Europe because in many states there is not outright repression, but a systemic degradation of religious freedom through bureaucratic prejudice, cultural bias, and official rhetoric that stigmatizes legitimate communities instead of protecting their rights.
Let me begin with Austria, a state that prides itself on neutrality, tolerance, and European human rights tradition. Yet Austria has created what can only be described as a state sponsored apparatus of suspicion directed at minority faiths.
Since 1998, Austria has maintained a Federal Office for “Cult Issues” — a publicly funded institution whose annual budget has grown to nearly 800,000 euros from taxpayers’ money.
Despite this:
- it produces no independent, peer-reviewed research;
- it fails to engage substantively with the communities it labels;
- it has been criticized by the Austrian Court of Audit for lack of transparency, unclear strategic goals, and absence of measurable outcomes.
Yet, the funding persists.
Even more striking: Austria — a nation of nine million people — hosts around 29 “anticult” or “cultt information” offices spread across state, religious, and private sectors. This proliferation of institutions devoted to monitoring “cults” is unmatched in Europe.
What does this achieve? It produces stigmatizing narratives that spill into classrooms, public institutions, and media. Children of religious minorities encounter biased “cult education.” Public broadcasters repeat loaded terms like “Sekte.” Labels replace evidence; repetition replaces argument. This is not neutral information — this is institutionalized prejudice.
Austria is not unique.
In Hungary, over 200 religious communities were stripped of legal personality in 2011, creating a two-tier system for faith groups — a measure condemned by both the Hungarian Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights. Many communities remain in legal limbo, deprived of basic institutional rights.
In the Czech Republic, the case of Professor Pavel Hlavinka, associate professor at Palacký University Olomouc, demonstrates how media pressure can undermine academic freedom and freedom of belief. After nearly 30 years of academic service, Professor Hlavinka— with no disciplinary record — was abruptly removed from teaching not by a transparent academic process, but following alarmist media coverage tied to his scholarly work on minority religious traditions.
Different tools. Same outcome: freedoms of belief, association, and academic inquiry eroded.
Why does this matter beyond Austria?
Austria’s historical role at the administrative heart of Central Europe still shapes legal cultures and state practices. When Austrian policy normalizes stigma against minorities, it sends a dangerous signal across the region. Conversely, genuine reform would send a powerful message: that neutrality, transparency, and equal treatment before the law are not abstract ideals, but practical policy choices that strengthen democracy.
This Forum matters because freedom of religion or belief is not self-executing — it must be actively defended through accountable institutions, rigorous public discourse, and civil society that speaks up even when silence is convenient.
In the words of Václav Havel, the Czech dissident, playwright, and statesman:
“Let us not be mistaken: the best government in the world, the best parliament and the best president, cannot achieve much on their own… Freedom and democracy include participation and therefore responsibility from all of us. If we realize this, hope will return to our hearts.”
Freedom of religion or belief depends on courage — courage to scrutinize our laws, to challenge prejudice, and to demand equal treatment under the law and respect in public discourse.
The moment has arrived.
The responsibility now lies with all of us.
Thank you for listening!
Hate speech in Czech media, Kristyna Tomanova (Excerpt)
The Czech Republic, my homeland, is known as one of the most secular countries in the world, where being religious is often perceived as… rather unusual. Sitting here next to the representative of Slovakia — a country with which we once shared a common state — we can feel that although our histories are similar, they have led us in slightly different directions.
While in Slovakia religion has remained socially visible and culturally significant, closely connected to national identity and tradition, in Czech society religion has increasingly become private, optional, and often marginalized — with greater emphasis placed on secularism, humanism, science, and personal responsibility than on faith or belief in something beyond the individual, beyond the merely material, beyond our flesh and brain.
This reality is something I often encounter even in my own professional field. I learned about this phenomenon not only academically, but personally. During my psychology studies and training, I once mentioned in a lecture that a part of our personality is also our soul – our inner, spiritual dimension.
To my shock, thirty pairs of eyes of my classmates — including the lecturer’s — looked at me in disbelief and asked, “What on earth are you talking about? Body? Okay. Mind? Okay. But a soul?” Come on…
And yet, psychology was once defined as “the science of the soul” — a definition still clearly reflected in the Czech language itself, where the word psychology, psyche is directly linked to Czech duše, the soul. Still, today, speaking about the deepest and highest dimensions of human experience often feels almost inappropriate or even dangerous.
This is the prevailing narrative in the place I call home: having faith or believing in the spiritual is seen by much of the general public as something strange. And if you believe — or are religious — “just please do not talk about it at work, at school, with your children, or even with friends at a pub”. Keep it to yourself, and then you will not be judged, you will be safe.
We are not here to point fingers. Perhaps this is partly a legacy of our post-communist past. But what we are observing — and increasingly documenting — is that matters of religion and belief are often absent from the awareness of people working in key institutions: courts, schools, universities, government bodies, media, and even police forces. And this highly impacts our lives.There is a lack of knowledge, literacy, best practices, and sensitivity regarding faith-related issues. As a result, discrimination rooted in ignorance often goes unnoticed, unrecognized, or unchallenged.
For this reason, and in order to raise awareness, InterBelief Relief recently conducted a comprehensive survey mapping hate speech in Czech media targeting new religious movements between 1996 and 2025. The data speaks for itself: it represents nearly a twentyfold increase, from 27 articles in 2016 to 524 in 2025, indicating an increasingly normalized pattern of stigmatization.
These narratives fuel polarization, fear, defamation based on belief, public insults, incitement to discrimination, hatred, and calls for restricting fundamental rights and freedoms. Members of religious groups such as Resonance, POYRA, Scientology, the Family Federation, Hare Krishna, Shincheonji, Latter-day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and many others have reported experiencing fear for their personal safety, dignity, and fundamental rights as a result of persistent public shaming.
There is often no fact-checking and no right of reply, causing immense despair among affected members.
But of course, behind these numbers and articles there are real human lives — and they require institutionalized state-level protection. We strive to engage in dialogue with the government, to support media literacy, to communicate with ministries and to raise awareness of problems that are far from non-existent. These issues directly affect family stability, physical and mental health, employment opportunities, education, social cohesion, and at times result in pressure toward enforced conformity or in de facto secularization.
Diversity of faith is not a threat to democracy. It is its heartbeat.
So, let us rather promote openness instead of judgement, curiosity in one another instead of suspicion and fear, and finally engagement instead of rejection or denial.
