However, according to the HRWF, four other countries decided to take a new course of action. Austria created an information center about sects, and launched a prevention campaign warning against certain movements. Germany set up a parliamentary commission and placed scientology under surveillance, though no legal action is currently being taken place against this movement. France established a parliamentary investigation commission, which published a report with a list of 172 dangerous and harmful sects. Belgium also established a parliamentary investigation commission, which blacklisted 189 religious groups and sects.
Moral panics start with a basis in reality, but escalate through exaggeration.
This happened in the US after Jonestown in 1978 and is currently evident in Europe following the Solar Temple incidents between 1994 and 1997, Introvigne said. According to the HRWF, this is the definition that France wants to see imposed. Since religious liberty is recognized in Western Europe as a value and constitutionally safeguarded, including by international treaties, the only way to discriminate against a religious minority is to argue that it is not religious at all, Introvigne argues. According to Alain Vivien, the total of 160 cases against the sects are currently pending in the French courts, because these groups are yet to be recognized as religious associations. However, it turned out that the case was a vengeance of an influential patient who involved blacklisting in his personal settlement of the scores.