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Saturday, February 24, 2024

Human rights defender

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing campaigners, participants in direct action, or just individuals acting alone. They can defend rights as part of their jobs or in a voluntary capacity. As a result of their activities, human rights defenders (HRDs) are often subjected to reprisals including smears, surveillance, harassment, false charges, arbitrary detention, restrictions on the right to freedom of association, physical attack, and even murder. In 2020, at least 331 HRDs were murdered in 25 countries. The international community and some national governments have attempted to respond to this violence through various protections, but violence against HRDs continues to rise. Women human rights defenders and environmental human rights defenders (who are very often indigenous) face greater repression and risks than human rights defenders working on other issues.

In 1998, the United Nations issued their Declaration on Human Rights Defenders to legitimise the work of human rights defenders and extend protection for human rights activity. Following this Declaration, increasing numbers of activists have adopted the HRD label; this is especially true for professional human rights workers.

Definition

The term human rights defender (HRD) became commonly used within the international human rights community after the UN General Assembly issued the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognised Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (A/RES/53/144, 1998), commonly known as the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. Prior to this Declaration, activist, worker, or monitor were more common terms for people working to defend human rights. The Declaration on Human Rights Defenders created a very broad definition of human rights defenders to include anyone who promotes or defends human rights. This broad definition presents both challenges and benefits to stakeholders and donors seeking to support HRD protection programs, as more precise definitions exclude some categories of HRDs, but such broad definition also leaves much room for interpretation and can make it difficult to establish HRD status for some at-risk individuals.

In 2004, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued Fact Sheet 29 to further define and support human rights defenders. This document states that, "no 'qualification' is required to be a human rights defender," but that the minimum standards for HRDs are acceptance of the universality of human rights and non-violent action.

Some researchers have attempted to demarcate categories of human rights defenders for the purpose of better understanding patterns of HRD risks. Such categorisation may discern professional vs. non-professional activity, or differentiate based on the specific rights that are being defended such as the rights of women, or indigenous land rights.

Self identification

Self-identification as a human rights defender is more common among professional human rights advocates who work within established institutions, governments, or NGOs. Individuals who work outside of these systems commonly self-identify as 'activists', 'leaders', or by a broad range of other terms instead of human rights defenders, even when their activity falls clearly within the scope outlined by the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. Use of the HRD identity could benefit human rights activists by legitimising their work and facilitating access to protective measures. Use of the HRD identity can also be counterproductive by directing attention to particular individuals rather than focusing on the collective nature of their work, which may also have the effect of further endangering these individuals.

Threats to human rights defenders

Human rights defenders (HRDs) face severe repression and retaliation from government and private actors including the police, military, local elites, private security forces, right-wing groups, and multi-national corporations. Abuses include threats, arbitrary arrest and detainment, harassment, defamation, dismissal from jobs, eviction, disappearance, and murder. HRDs who work on women's rights (WHRDs) or who challenge cultural gender norms run increased risks compared to other HRDs, as do less prominent workers in remote areas. Environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) who work on environmental rights, land rights, and indigenous rights issues also face greater threats than other HRDs; in 2020 69% of the HRDs killed globally were working on these issues.

A report published by Front Line Defenders in 2020 found that at least 331 HRDs were murdered that year in 25 countries. Although indigenous people only account for about 6% of the global population, approximately 1/3 of these murdered HRDs were indigenous. In 2019, 304 HRDs were murdered in 31 countries. Global Witness reported that 1,922 EHRDs were killed in 52 countries between 2002 and 2019. 80% of these deaths were in Latin America. Approximately 1/3 of the EHRDs reported killed between 2015 and 2019 were indigenous. Documentation of this violence is incomplete, and for every death there may be as many as a hundred cases of severe repression such as detainment, eviction, defamation, etc.

Research conducted by the Business and Human Rights Resource Center documented a 34 percent increase worldwide in attacks against human rights activists in 2017. The figures included 120 suspected murders and hundreds of incidents that involved assault, bullying, and threats. There were 388 attacks in 2017 compared to only 290 in 2016. The same study identified human rights defenders connected to agribusiness, mining, and renewable energy sectors (EHRDs) as those in greatest danger. Lawyers and members of environmental groups were also at risk.

UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders

The United Nations Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (A/RES/53/144) on December 9, 1998, commonly known as the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, is the first UN instrument to legitimise and define human rights defenders, as well as the right and responsibility for everyone to protect human rights.

The Declaration is not legally binding, but it articulates rights established by existing human rights treaties and applies them to human rights defenders in order to legitimise their work and extend protection of HRDs. Under the Declaration, a human rights defender is anyone who works to promote or protect human rights: whether professionally or non-professionally; alone or as part of group or institution.

The Declaration articulates existing rights in a way that makes it easier to apply them to human rights defenders. The rights protected under the Declaration include, among others, the right to develop and discuss new human rights ideas and to advocate their acceptance; the right to criticise government bodies and agencies and to make proposals to improve their functioning; the right to provide legal assistance or other advice and assistance in defence of human rights; the right to observe fair trials; the right to unhindered access to and communication with non-governmental and intergovernmental organisations; the right to access resources for the purpose of protecting human rights, including the receipt of funds from abroad; and the rights of free expression, association and assembly.

The Declaration indicates that states have a responsibility to implement and respect the provisions of the Declaration and emphasises the duty of the state to protect HRDs from violence, retaliation and intimidation as a consequence of their human rights work. The Declaration also places responsibility to protect human rights at the individual level and especially upon individuals in professions that may affect human rights such as law enforcement, judges, etc.

Women human rights defenders

Main article: Women human rights defenders

Women human rights defenders (WHRDs) are women who defend human rights, and defenders of all genders who defend the rights of women and rights related to gender and sexuality. Their work and the challenges they face have been recognized by a United Nations (UN) resolution in 2013, which calls for specific protection for women human rights defenders.

This is the logo for the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition that represents the coming together and discussing problematic issues dealing with human rights for all.

A woman human rights defender can be an Indigenous woman fighting for the rights of her community, a woman advocating against torture, an LGBTQI rights campaigner, a sex workers’ rights collective, or a man fighting for sexual and reproductive rights.

Like other human rights defenders, women human rights defenders can be the target of attacks as they demand the realization of human rights. They face attacks such as discrimination, assault, threats, and violence within their communities. Women human rights defenders face additional obstacles based on who they are and the specific rights they defend. This means they are targeted just because they are women, LGBTI people or for identifying with their struggles. They also face additional obstacles connected with Institutional discrimination and inequality and because they challenge, or are seen to be challenging, patriarchal power and social norms. They are more at risk of facing gender based violence in the home and the community, and sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, trans-phobic threats, smears and stigmatization, as well as exclusion from resources and power.  International Women Human Rights Defenders Day has been celebrated each 29 November since 2006.

In 2017, female activists who were killed because of their advocacies and activities in defending human rights were honored during the International Women Human Rights Defenders' Day. Those murdered criticized corruption and other forms of injustice, protect their lands from governments and multinational corporations, and upheld the rights of lesbians, gays and transgender individuals.

Environmental human rights defenders

Main articles: Environmental defender and Water protectors
See also: Environmental justice

Environmental human rights defenders or simply environmental defenders, have been defined by the UN Environment Programme as, "defenders carrying out a vast range of activities related to land and environmental rights, including those working on issues related to extractive industries, and construction and development projects." They also state that environmental defenders are, "defending environmental rights, including constitutional rights to a clean and healthy environment, when the exercise of those rights is being threatened whether or not they self-identify as human rights defenders. Many environmental defenders engage in their activities through sheer necessity."

The use of the term Environmental defender (or Environmental human rights defender) by human rights organizations, the media, and academia is recent and associated with the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. However, the approach and role of environmental defenders is closely related to earlier concepts developed as early as the 1980s such as environmental justice and environmentalism of the poor. Although these different terms have different origins, they converge around the re-establishment of land-based cultures, re-making of place for marginalized people, and protection of land and livelihood from activities such as resource extraction, dumping of toxic waste, and land appropriation. Since the 1998 UN Declaration, the term environmental defenders is increasingly used by global organizations and media to refer to this convergence of goals and analysis.

Protection instruments

Following the adoption of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders in 1998, a number of initiatives were taken, both at the international and regional level, to increase the protection of defenders and contribute to the implementation of the Declaration. In this context, the following mechanisms and guidelines were established:

In 2008, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), took the initiative to gather all the human rights defenders' institutional mandate-holders (created within the United Nations, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Council of Europe, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Union) to find ways to enhance coordination and complementarities among themselves and with NGOs. In 2010, a single inter-mechanisms website was created, gathering all relevant public information on the activities of the different human rights defenders' protection mandate-holders. It aims to increase the visibility of the documentation produced by the mechanisms (press releases, studies, reports, statements), as well as of their actions (country visits, institutional events, trials observed).

In 2016, the International Service for Human Rights published the 'Model National Law on the Recognition and Protection of Human Rights Defenders'. This document provides authoritative guidance to states on how to implement the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders at the national level. It was developed in collaboration with hundreds of defenders and endorsed by leading human rights experts and jurists.

Several countries have introduced national legislation or policies to protect human rights defenders including Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, and Guatemala; however, key challenges in implementation remain.

Awards for human rights defenders

Electronic mapping

Electronic mapping is a newly developed tool using electronic networks and satellite imagery and tracking. Examples include tactical mapping, crisis mapping and geo-mapping. Tactical mapping has been primarily used in tracking human rights abuses by providing visualization of the tracking and implementation monitoring.

Examples of HRDs

In 2017, Human rights lawyer Emil Kurbedinov, a Crimean Tatar, won the 2017 Award for Frontline Human Rights Defenders at Risk. Kurbedinov has been an avid defender of civil society militants, mistreated Crimean Tatars, and members of the media. He documents violations of human rights during searches of activists' residences as well as emergency responses. In January 2017, the Crimean Center for Counteracting Extremism arrested and detained the lawyer. He was taken to a local facility of the Russian Federal Security Service for questioning. A district tribunal ruled that Kurbedinov was guilty of doing propaganda work for terrorist groups and organizations. He was sentenced to 10 days of imprisonment.

See also

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Deprogramming

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Deprogramming is a controversial tactic that seeks to dissuade someone from "strongly held convictions" such as religious beliefs. Deprogramming purports to assist a person who holds a particular belief system—of a kind considered harmful by those initiating the deprogramming—to change those beliefs and sever connections to the group associated with them. Typically, people identifying themselves as deprogrammers are hired by a person's relatives, often parents of adult children. The subject of the deprogramming is usually forced to undergo the procedure, which might last days or weeks, against their will.

Methods and practices of deprogramming are varied but have often involved kidnapping and false imprisonment which have sometimes resulted in criminal convictions. The practice has led to controversies over freedom of religion, civil rights, criminality and the use of violence. Proponents of deprogramming present the practice as a necessary counter-measure to the systematic "brainwashing" procedures allegedly employed by religious groups, which they claim deprive the individual of their capacity for free choice.

Background

In the United States in the early 1970s there was an increasing number of New Religious Movements. Ted Patrick, the "father of deprogramming", formed an organisation he called "The Citizens' Freedom Foundation" and began offering 'deprogramming' services to people who wanted to break a family member's connection to an NRM. Patrick's methods involved abduction, physical restraint, detention over days or weeks while maintaining a constant presence with the victim, food and sleep deprivation, prolonged verbal and emotional abuse, and desecration of the symbols of the victim's faith.

Deprogrammers justified their actions by applying a theory of "brainwashing" to New Religious Movements. Brainwashing theory denied the possibility of authentic spiritual choice for an NRM member, proposing instead that such individuals were subject to systematic mind control programs that overrode their capacity for independent volition.  Ted Patrick's theory of brainwashing was that individuals were hypnotized by brainwaves projected from a recruiter's eyes and fingertips, after which the state was maintained by constant indoctrination, a totalistic environment and self-hypnosis.  Most academic research, however, indicated that the reasons for people joining, remaining in, or leaving NRMs were complex, varied from group to group and individual to individual, and generally reflected the continued presence of a capacity for individual responsibility and choice.

The Citizens' Freedom Foundation, which later became known as the Cult Awareness Network, became the most prominent group in the emerging national anti-cult movement of the 1970s and 80s. The anti-cult movement lobbied for state and national legislative action to legitimize its activities, and although this had very limited success, the movement was nevertheless able to forge alliances with a number of governmental agencies. This was primarily on the back of its propagation of the brainwashing/mind control ideology, which succeeded in turning affiliation with NRMs into an issue of public—rather than private—concern, and gave a pseudo-legitimacy to the anti-cultists' more extreme claims and actions.

Although the CFF and CAN were in favour of deprogramming, they distanced themselves from the practice from the late 1970s onwards. Despite this apparent repudiation, however, they continued the practice. CFF and CAN referred thousands of paying clients to activist members who kept lists of deprogrammers. The total number that occurred is unknown, but in 1980 Ted Patrick claimed to have been hired over 2000 times as a professional abductor. Many other operators emerged both during and after the period in which he was active, many of them trained by him.  The practice of deprogramming was an integral part of the anti-cult ideology and economy, and was seen as an effective response to the demand emanating from people who wanted a family member extracted, but it also clashed with the need for anti-cult organizations to present themselves as 'educational' associations (the CFF, for example, received tax-exempt status as an educational trust). This, along with its tenuous legal and moral status, meant that deprogramming tended to be publicly disavowed, while its practice continued clandestinely.

Use of violence

Deprogramming became a controversial practice due to the violent and illegal nature of some of its methods. Various academics have commented on the practice. Sociologist Anson D. Shupe and others wrote that deprogramming is comparable to exorcism in both methodology and manifestation. Professor of Sociology and Judicial Studies James T. Richardson described deprogramming as a "private, self-help process whereby participants in unpopular new religious movements (NRMs) were forcibly removed from the group, incarcerated, and put through radical resocialization processes that were supposed to result in their agreeing to leave the group." Law professor Douglas Laycock, author of Religious Liberty: The Free Exercise Clause, wrote:

Beginning in the 1970s, many parents responded to the initial conversion with "deprogramming." The essence of deprogramming was to physically abduct the convert, isolate him and physically restrain him, and barrage him with continuous arguments and attacks against his new religion, threatening to hold him forever until he agreed to leave it.

Deprogrammers generally operated on the presumption that the people they were paid to extract from religious organizations were victims of mind control or brainwashing. Since the theory was that such individuals were incapable of rational thought, extreme measures were thought to be justified for their own good, up to and including the use of criminal violence. Ted Patrick was eventually tried and convicted of multiple felonies relating to kidnapping and false imprisonment of deprogramming subjects.

Violence of one degree or another is common to all anecdotal accounts of deprogramming. There are numerous testimonies from people who describe being threatened with a gun, beaten, denied food and sleep, and sexually assaulted. In these accounts the deprogramming usually begins with the victim being forced into a vehicle and taken to a place where they are isolated from everyone but their captors. Told that they would not be released until they renounce their beliefs, they are then subjected to days and sometimes weeks of verbal, emotional, psychological and/or physical pressure, until the demands of their abductors are satisfied.

According to sociologist Eileen Barker, "one does not have to rely on the victims for stories of violence: Ted Patrick, one of the most notorious deprogrammers used by CAGs [cult-awareness groups] (who has spent several terms in prison for his exploits) openly boasts about some of the violence he employed." A number of other prominent members of "cult-awareness groups" have been convicted of violent crimes committed in the course of deprogrammings.

Carol Giambalvo, who worked for the Cult Awareness Network in the 1980s (although she went on to advocate for "voluntary exit counseling" and "thought reform consultation") said that although abductions certainly occurred, the more common practice was to forcefully detain people in their own homes, or in a cabin or motel room. Giambalvo tells of "horror stories" of restraint, beatings, use of handcuffs and weapons, sexual abuse and even rape, although she claims that these were only used in the minority of cases and that deprogramming "helped to free many individuals".

Rationale and effectiveness

Carol Giambalvo described the reasoning behind deprogramming thus:

It was believed that the hold of the brainwashing over the cognitive processes of a cult member needed to be broken – or "snapped" as some termed it – by means that would shock or frighten the cultist into thinking again. For that reason in some cases cult leader's pictures were burned or there were highly confrontational interactions between deprogrammers and cultist. What was often sought was an emotional response to the information, the shock, the fear, and the confrontation.

Another associate of Ted Patrick, Sylvia Buford, identified five stages in the deprogramming which would, ideally, bring the subject to a recognition of their condition:

  1. Discrediting the authority figure
  2. Presenting contradictions - comparing the ideology with the reality; for example, "How can he preach love when he exploits people?"
  3. The breaking point, at which the subject begins to accept the deprogrammer's position and begins doubting the ideology
  4. Self-expression: the subject begins to voice criticisms and complaints against the cult.
  5. Identification and transference: the subject begins to identify with the deprogrammers, thinking as an opponent of the cult rather than as a member.

According to Giambalvo and others, however, deprogramming frequently failed completely to achieve the desired outcome and often caused significant harm. While some advocates claimed a high success rate, studies show that natural attrition rates are actually higher than those achieved by deprogramming interventions.

Professor of psychiatry Saul V. Levine suggests that it is doubtful that deprogramming helps many people and goes on to say that it actually causes harm to the victim by the very nature of deprogramming. For deprogramming to work, the victim must be convinced that they joined a religious group against their will. They then must renounce responsibility and accept that in some mysterious way that their minds were controlled. He argues that deprogramming destroys a person's identity and is likely to create permanent anxiety about freedom of choice and leave the deprogrammed subject dependent upon the guidance and advice of others.

The Dialog Center International (DCI) a major Christian counter-cult organization founded in 1973 by a Danish professor of missiology and ecumenical theology, Johannes Aagaard, rejects deprogramming, believing that it is counterproductive, ineffective, and can harm the relationship between a cult member and concerned family members.

Government

Deprogrammers have sometimes operated with overt or tacit support of law enforcement and judicial officials. Richardson sees government involvement in deprogramming as existing on a continuum from implicit approval to active involvement. In the United States, where there are First Amendment protections for religious groups, government officials and agencies frequently "turned a blind eye" to the activities of deprogrammers. In China, Government agencies have at times promoted activities resembling deprogramming to enforce official views of "correct" beliefs and behaviors, for example in the suppression of the Falun Gong movement. This can involve "vigorous, even violent, efforts to dissuade people from participating in groups deemed unacceptable to the government" and have been "given legal sanction by the passage of laws that make illegal the activities or even the beliefs of the unpopular movement or group being targeted".

In the United States—in New York, Kansas, Nebraska, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon and Texas—lawmakers unsuccessfully attempted to legalize involuntary deprogramming, either through a deprogramming bill or conservatorship legislation. In New York, two bills were actually passed by the legislature (in 1980 and 1981), but both were vetoed by Governor Hugh Carey because of their violation of religious and other constitutional freedoms. In other states the bills failed to pass the legislature.

Controversy and related issues

In the United States, from the mid-1970s and throughout the 1980s mind control was a widely accepted theory in public opinion, and the vast majority of newspaper and magazine accounts of deprogrammings assumed that recruits' relatives were well justified to seek conservatorships and to hire deprogrammers.

One disturbing aspect from a civil rights point of view, was that people hiring deprogrammers would use deception or other ethically questionable methods—including kidnapping—to get their relative into deprogrammers' hands, without allowing them any recourse to a lawyer or psychiatrist of their own choosing. Previously, there would be a sanity hearing first, and only then a commitment to an asylum or involuntary therapy. But with deprogramming, judges routinely granted parents legal authority over their adult children without a hearing.

Critics contend that deprogramming and exit counseling begin with a false premise. Lawyers for some groups who have lost members due to deprogramming, as well as some civil liberties advocates, sociologists and psychologists, argue that it is not the religious groups but rather the deprogrammers who are the ones who deceive and manipulate people.

During the 1990s, deprogrammer Rick Ross was sued by Jason Scott, a former member of a Pentecostal group called the Life Tabernacle Church, after an unsuccessful deprogramming attempt. In 1995, the jury awarded Scott US$875,000 in compensatory damages and US$2,500,000 in punitive damages against Ross, which were later settled for US$5,000 and 200 hours of services. More significantly, the jury also found that the leading anti-cult group known as the Cult Awareness Network (CAN) was a co-conspirator in the crime and fined CAN around US$1,000,000 in punitive damages, forcing the group into bankruptcy. This case is often seen as effectively closing the door on the practice of involuntary deprogramming in the United States.

Referral and kickback system

Anti-cult groups play a central role in maintaining the underground network of communications, referrals, transportation, and housing necessary for continued deprogramming.

The Cult Awareness Network operated a referral scheme (NARDEC) in which they would refer people to deprogrammers in return for a "kickback" in the form of a donation or as a commission. Deprogrammers such as Rick Alan Ross, Steven Hassan and Carol Giambalvo were among the CAN-referred deprogrammers.

Historical examples
Year Subject Group Description Deprogrammer
1974 Kathy Crampton Love Family The abduction and deprogramming were televised across the United States; shortly after what was thought to be a 'successful' deprogramming, she went back to the group. Deprogrammer charged with kidnapping but acquitted. Ted Patrick
1980 Susan Wirth, a 35-year-old teacher living in San Francisco Coalition to Fight the Death Penalty; African People's Solidarity Committee; anti-nuclear Taken off the street and shoved into a van by 4 kidnappers, at the instigation of her parents. The parents paid US$27,000 for the deprogramming, which included being gagged, handcuffed to a bed for two weeks, denied food and water and repeatedly threatened. Despite the ordeal Wirth remained committed to her causes and spoke out against deprogramming, but declined to press legal charges against her parents. Ted Patrick
1980 Roberta McElfish, a 26-year-old Tucson waitress. Wesley Thomas Family Abducted off the street by relatives who thought she had joined a cult, McElfish managed to escape before a deprogramming was administered. Deprogrammer convicted of conspiracy, kidnapping, and false imprisonment; sentenced to one year in prison and fined US$5,000. Ted Patrick
1981 Stephanie Riethmiller, who lived in Ohio lesbian relationship Kidnapped by deprogrammers hired by her parents; she was allegedly held against her will and repeatedly raped. Filed civil charges against her parents and the deprogrammers, which were dismissed in a trial that generated some controversy in the media.
1981 Thomas Ward Unification Church Held captive for 35 days and subjected to physical and psychological abuse by deprogrammers and family members. In Ward's civil action the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal civil rights laws protect against religious discrimination. The judgement contradicted the (then common) "parental immunity" principle in such cases.
1990 Elma Miller, an Amish woman liberal sect Deprogrammers hired by her husband to return her to him and the Amish church. Criminal charges of conspiracy were filed against the husband, brother, and two others but were later dropped on her request to the prosecuting attorney. Ted Patrick
1990s Jason Scott Pentecostalist group called the Life Tabernacle Church (part of United Pentecostal Church International) Unsuccessful deprogramming. Scott became a former member and sued. The jury awarded Scott US$875,000 in compensatory damages and US$1,000,000 in punitive damages against the Cult Awareness Network (CAN), and US$2,500,000 against Ross (later settled for US$5,000 and 200 hours of services "as an expert consultant and intervention specialist"). Rick Ross

Exit counseling

Proponents of "Exit counseling" distinguish it from coercive forms of deprogramming. The fundamental difference is that involuntary deprogramming involves forced confinement of the individual whereas in exit counseling they are free to leave at any time. The absence of physical coercion is thought to increase the likelihood of establishing a rapport and of not alienating, enraging or terrifying the subject. Exit counsellors are typically brought in during a "family Intervention", where they explain their role and seek to change the subject's attitude to their religious group through reasoning and persuasion.

Langone, writing in 1993, estimated that deprogramming costs typically rise to at least US$10,000, compared to exit counseling which typically costs US$2,000 to US$4,000, although cases requiring extensive research of little-known groups can cost much more. Deprogramming, especially when it fails, also entails considerable legal risk and psychological risk (for example, a permanent alienation of the subject from their family). In exit counseling, these psychological and legal risks are reduced. Although deprogrammers prepare family members (other than the subject) for the process, exit counselors tend to work with such family members directly, expecting those requesting the intervention to contribute to the process. Exit counseling requires that families establish a reasonable and respectful level of communication with their loved one before the program itself can begin. Because deprogramming relies on coercion (which is illegal except in the case of conservatorship and is generally viewed as unethical) deprogrammers' critiques of the religious organization tend to be less credible to the subject than the arguments of exit counselors.

Steven Hassan, a proponent of exit counseling and author of Combatting Cult Mind Control, states that he took part in a number of deprogrammings in the late 1970s, but has been critical of them since 1980. Hassan states that he has not participated in any deprogrammings since then, although he says that forced intervention should be kept as a last resort if all non-coercive "strategies to influence the cult member" fail.

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Anti-intellectualism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism
Anti-intellectualism contrasts the reedy scholar with the bovine boxer, the comparison epitomizes the populist view of reading and study as antithetical to sport and athleticism. Note the disproportionate heads and bodies, with the size of the head representing mental ability and the size of the body representing physical ability. (Thomas Nast)

Anti-intellectualism is hostility to and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectualism, commonly expressed as deprecation of education and philosophy and the dismissal of art, literature, and science as impractical, politically motivated, and even contemptible human pursuits. Anti-intellectuals present themselves and are perceived as champions of common folk—populists against political and academic elitism—and tend to see educated people as a status class that dominates political discourse and higher education while being detached from the concerns of ordinary people.

Totalitarian governments have, in the past, manipulated and applied anti-intellectualism to repress political dissent. During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and the following dictatorship (1939–1975) of General Francisco Franco, the reactionary repression of the White Terror (1936–1945) was notably anti-intellectual, with most of the 200,000 civilians killed being the Spanish intelligentsia, the politically active teachers and academics, artists and writers of the deposed Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939). During the Cambodian Genocide (1975–1979), the totalitarian regime of Cambodia nearly destroyed its entire educated population.

Ideological anti-intellectualism

In the 20th century, societies systematically removed intellectuals from power, to expediently end public political dissent. During the Cold War (1945–1991), the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (1948–1990) ostracized the philosopher Václav Havel as a politically unreliable man unworthy of ordinary Czechs' trust; the post-communist Velvet Revolution (17 November – 29 December 1989) elected Havel president for ten years. Ideologically-extreme dictatorships who mean to recreate a society such as the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia (1975–1979) pre-emptively killed potential political opponents, especially the educated middle-class and the intelligentsia. To realize the Year Zero of Cambodian history, Khmer Rouge social engineering restructured the economy by de-industrialization and assassinated non-communist Cambodians suspected of "involvement in free-market activities" such as the urban professionals of society (physicians, attorneys, engineers, et al.) and people with political connections to foreign governments. The doctrine of Pol Pot identified the farmers as the true proletariat of Cambodia and the true representatives of the working class entitled to hold government power, hence the anti-intellectual purges.

In the Night of the Long Batons (29 July 1966), the federal police physically purged politically incorrect academics who opposed the right-wing military dictatorship of Juan Carlos Onganía (1966–1970) in Argentina from five faculties of the University of Buenos Aires.

In 1966, the anti-communist Argentine military dictatorship of General Juan Carlos Onganía (1966–1970) intervened at the University of Buenos Aires with the Night of the Long Batons to physically dislodge politically dangerous academics from five university faculties. That expulsion to the exile of the academic intelligentsia became a national brain drain upon the society and economy of Argentina. In opposition to the military repression of free speech, biochemist César Milstein said ironically: "Our country would be put in order, as soon as all the intellectuals who were meddling in the region were expelled."

Academic anti-intellectualism

In The Campus War (1971), the philosopher John Searle said,

[T]he two most salient traits of the radical movement are its anti-intellectualism and its hostility to the university as an institution. ... Intellectuals, by definition, are people who take ideas seriously for their own sake. Whether or not a theory is true or false is important to them, independently of any practical applications it may have. [Intellectuals] have, as Richard Hofstadter has pointed out, an attitude to ideas that is at once playful and pious. But, in the radical movement, the intellectual ideal of knowledge for its own sake is rejected. Knowledge is seen as valuable only as a basis for action, and it is not even very valuable there. Far more important than what one knows is how one feels.

In Social Sciences as Sorcery (1972), the sociologist Stanislav Andreski advised laymen to distrust the intellectuals' appeals to authority when they make questionable claims about resolving the problems of their society: "Do not be impressed by the imprint of a famous publishing house, or the volume of an author's publications. ... Remember that the publishers want to keep the printing presses busy, and do not object to nonsense if it can be sold."

In Science and Relativism: Some Key Controversies in the Philosophy of Science (1990), philosopher of science and epistemologist Larry Laudan said that the prevailing type of philosophy taught at universities in the U.S. (Postmodernism and Poststructuralism) is anti-intellectual, because "the displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter, by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is—second only to American political campaigns—the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time."

Distrust of intellectuals

In the U.S., the American conservative economist Thomas Sowell argued for distinctions between unreasonable and reasonable wariness of intellectuals in their influence upon the institutions of a society. In defining intellectuals as "people whose occupations deal primarily with ideas", they are different from people whose work is the practical application of ideas. That cause for layman mistrust lies in the intellectuals' incompetence outside their fields of expertise. Although having great working knowledge in their specialist fields, when compared to other professions and occupations, the intellectuals of society face little discouragement against speaking authoritatively beyond their field of formal expertise, and thus are unlikely to face responsibility for the social and practical consequences of their errors. Hence, a physician is judged competent by the effective treatment of the sickness of a patient, yet might face a medical malpractice lawsuit should the treatment harm the patient. In contrast, a tenured university professor is unlikely to be judged competent or incompetent by the effectiveness of his or her intellectualism (ideas), and thus not face responsibility for the social and practical consequences of the implementation of the ideas.

In the book Intellectuals and Society (2009), Sowell said:

By encouraging, or even requiring, students to take stands where they have neither the knowledge nor the intellectual training to seriously examine complex issues, teachers promote the expression of unsubstantiated opinions, the venting of uninformed emotions, and the habit of acting on those opinions and emotions, while ignoring or dismissing opposing views, without having either the intellectual equipment or the personal experience to weigh one view against another in any serious way.

Hence, school teachers are part of the intelligentsia who recruit children in elementary school and teach them politics—to advocate for or to advocate against public policy—as part of community-service projects; which political experience later assists them in earning admission to a university. In that manner, the intellectuals of a society intervene and participate in social arenas of which they might not possess expert knowledge, and so unduly influence the formulation and realization of public policy. In the event, teaching political advocacy in elementary school encourages students to formulate opinions "without any intellectual training or prior knowledge of those issues, making constraints against falsity few or non-existent."

In Britain, the anti-intellectualism of the writer Paul Johnson derived from his close examination of twentieth-century history, which revealed to him that intellectuals have continually championed disastrous public policies for social welfare and public education, and warned the layman public to "beware [the] intellectuals. Not merely should they be kept well away from the levers of power, they should also be objects of suspicion when they seek to offer collective advice." In that vein, "In the Land of the Rococo Marxists" (2000), the American writer Tom Wolfe characterized the intellectual as "a person knowledgeable in one field, who speaks out only in others." In 2000, British publisher Imprint Academic published Dumbing Down, a compilation of essays edited by Ivo Mosley, grandson of the British fascist Oswald Mosley, which included essays on a perceived widespread anti-intellectualism by Jaron Lanier, Ravi Shankar, Robert Brustein, Michael Oakshott among others.

In the United States

17th century

In The Powring Out of the Seven Vials (1642), the Puritan John Cotton demonized intellectual men and women by saying that "the more learned and witty you bee, the more fit to act for Satan will you bee. ... Take off the fond doting ... upon the learning of the Jesuits, and the glorie of the Episcopacy, and the brave estates of the Prelates. I say bee not deceived by these pompes, empty shewes, and faire representations of goodly condition before the eyes of flesh and blood, bee not taken with the applause of these persons". Yet, not every Puritan concurred with Cotton's religious contempt for secular education, such as John Harvard, a major early benefactor of the university which now bears his name.

In The Quest for Cosmic Justice (2001), the economist Thomas Sowell said that anti-intellectualism in the U.S. began in the early Colonial era, as an understandable wariness of the educated upper classes, because the country mostly was built by people who had fled political and religious persecution by the social system of the educated upper classes. Moreover, there were few intellectuals who possessed the practical hands-on skills required to survive in the New World of North America, which absence from society led to a deep-rooted, populist suspicion of men and women who specialize in "verbal virtuosity", rather than tangible, measurable products and services:

From its colonial beginnings, American society was a "decapitated" society—largely lacking the top-most social layers of European society. The highest elites and the titled aristocracies had little reason to risk their lives crossing the Atlantic, and then face the perils of pioneering. Most of the white population of colonial America arrived as indentured servants and the black population as slaves. Later waves of immigrants were disproportionately peasants and proletarians, even when they came from Western Europe ... The rise of American society to pre-eminence, as an economic, political, and military power, was thus the triumph of the common man, and a slap across the face to the presumptions of the arrogant, whether an elite of blood or books.

19th century

In U.S. history, the advocacy and acceptability of anti-intellectualism has varied, in part because the majority of Americans lived a rural life of arduous manual labor and agricultural work prior to the industrialization of the late nineteenth century. Therefore, an academic education in the Greco–Roman classics was largely perceived as of impractical value and the bookish scholar deemed an unprofitable occupation. Yet, Americans of the nineteenth century were a generally literate people who read Shakespeare for intellectual pleasure and the Christian Bible for emotional succor; thus, the ideal American Man was a literate and technically-skilled man who was successful in his trade, ergo a productive member of society. Culturally, the ideal American was the self-made man whose knowledge derived from life-experience, not an intellectual man whose knowledge of the real world was derived from books, formal education, and academic study; thus, the justified anti-intellectualism reported in The New Purchase, or Seven and a Half Years in the Far West (1843), the Rev. Bayard R. Hall, A.M., said about frontier Indiana:

We always preferred an ignorant, bad man to a talented one, and, hence, attempts were usually made to ruin the moral character of a smart candidate; since, unhappily, smartness and wickedness were supposed to be generally coupled, and [like-wise] incompetence and goodness.

Yet, the "real-life" redemption of the egghead American intellectual was possible if he embraced the mores and values of mainstream society; thus, in the fiction of O. Henry, a character notes that once an East Coast university graduate "gets over" his intellectual vanity he no longer thinks himself better than other men, realizing he makes just as good a cowboy as any other young man, despite his common-man counterpart being the slow-witted naïf of good heart, a pop culture stereotype from stage shows.

20th–21st centuries

In 1912, the New Jersey governor, Woodrow Wilson, described the battle:

What I fear is a government of experts. God forbid that, in a democratic country, we should resign the task and give the government over to experts. What are we for if we are to be scientifically taken care of by a small number of gentlemen who are the only men who understand the job?

In Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963) the historian Richard Hofstadter said that anti-intellectualism is a social-class response, by the middle-class "mob", against the privileges of the political elites. As the middle class developed political power, they exercised their belief that the ideal candidate to office was the "self-made man", not the well-educated man born to wealth. The self-made man, from the middle class, could be trusted to act in the best interest of his fellow citizens. As evidence of this view, Hofstadter cited the derision of Adlai Stevenson as an "egghead". In Americans and Chinese: Passages to Differences (1980), Francis Hsu said that American egalitarianism is stronger in the U.S. than in Europe, e.g. in England,

English individualism developed hand in hand with legal equality. American self-reliance, on the other hand, has been inseparable from an insistence upon economic and social as well as political equality. The result is that a qualified individualism, with a qualified equality, has prevailed in England, but what has been considered the inalienable right of every American is unrestricted self-reliance and, at least ideally, unrestricted equality. The English, therefore, tend to respect class-based distinctions in birth, wealth, status, manners, and speech, while Americans resent them.

Such social resentment characterises contemporary political discussions about the socio-political functions of mass-communication media and science; that is, scientific facts, generally accepted by educated people throughout the world, are misrepresented as opinions in the U.S., specifically about climate science and global warming.

Miami University anthropology professor Homayun Sidky has argued that 21st-century anti-scientific and pseudoscientific approaches to knowledge, particularly in the United States, are rooted in a postmodernist "decades-long academic assault on science:" "Many of those indoctrinated in postmodern anti-science went on to become conservative political and religious leaders, policymakers, journalists, journal editors, judges, lawyers, and members of city councils and school boards. Sadly, they forgot the lofty ideals of their teachers, except that science is bogus."

In 2017, a Pew Research Center poll revealed that a majority of American Republicans thought colleges and universities have a negative impact on the United States, and in 2019, academics Adam Waters and E.J. Dionne stated that U.S. President Donald Trump "campaigned for the presidency and continues to govern as a man who is anti-intellectual, as well as anti-fact and anti-truth." In 2020, Trump signed an executive order banning anti-racism bias trainings from offices of federal agencies, grant programs, and federal contractors as part of a larger strategy to combat a perceived progressive academic bias, like emphases on the political legacy of American slavery, with "patriotic education" instead.

The U.S. ranks at middling quality of education compared to other countries, and Americans often lack basic knowledge and skills. Various surveys have found, among other things: that 77% of American public school students cannot identify George Washington as the first President of the United States; that around 1 in 5 Americans believe that the Sun revolves around Earth; and that about 50% of American high school graduates are unprepared for college-level reading. John Traphagan of the University of Texas attributes this to a culture of anti-intellectualism, noting that nerds and other intellectuals are often stigmatized in American schools and popular culture. At universities, student anti-intellectualism has resulted in the social acceptability of cheating on schoolwork, especially in the business schools, a manifestation of ethically expedient cognitive dissonance rather than of academic critical thinking.

The American Council on Science and Health said that denialism of the facts of climate science and of climate change misrepresents verifiable data and information as political opinion. Anti-intellectualism puts scientists in the public view and forces them to align with either a liberal or a conservative political stance. Moreover, 53% of Republican U.S. Representatives and 74% of Republican Senators deny the scientific facts of the causes of climate change.

In the rural U.S., anti-intellectualism is an essential feature of the religious culture of Christian fundamentalism. Mainline Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic Church have directly published their collective support for political action to counter climate change, whereas Southern Baptists and Evangelicals have denounced belief in both evolution and climate change as a sin, and have dismissed scientists as intellectuals attempting to create "Neo-nature paganism". People of fundamentalist religious belief tend to report not seeing evidence of global warming.

Corporate mass media

The reportage of corporate mass-communications media appealed to societal anti-intellectualism by misrepresenting university life in the U.S., where the students' pursuit of book learning (intellectualism) was secondary to the after-school social life. That the reactionary ideology communicated in mass-media reportage misrepresented the liberal political activism and social protest of students as frivolous, social activities thematically unrelated to the academic curriculum, which is the purpose of attending university. In Anti-intellectualism in American Media (2004), Dane Claussen identified the contemporary anti-intellectualist bent of manufactured consent that is inherent to commodified information:  The effects of mass media on attitudes toward intellect are certainly multiple and ambiguous. On the one hand, mass communications greatly expand the sheer volume of information available for public consumption. On the other hand, much of this information comes pre-interpreted for easy digestion and laden with hidden assumption, saving consumers the work of having to interpret it for themselves. Commodified information naturally tends to reflect the assumptions and interests of those who produce it, and its producers are not driven entirely by a passion to promote critical reflection.

The editorial perspective of the corporate mass-media misrepresented intellectualism as a profession that is separate and apart from the jobs and occupations of regular folk. In presenting academically successful students as social failures, an undesirable social status for the average young man and young woman, corporate media established to the U.S. mainstream their opinion that the intellectualism of book-learning is a form of mental deviancy, thus, most people would shun intellectuals as friends, lest they risk social ridicule and ostracism. Hence, the popular acceptance of anti-intellectualism led to populist rejection of the intelligentsia for resolving the problems of society. Moreover, in the book Inventing the Egghead: The Battle over Brainpower in American Culture (2013), Aaron Lecklider indicated that the contemporary ideological dismissal of the intelligentsia derived from the corporate media's reactionary misrepresentations of intellectual men and women as lacking the common-sense of regular folk.

In Europe

Soviet Union

In the first decade after the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks suspected the Tsarist intelligentsia as having the potential to betray the proletariat. Thus, the initial Soviet government consisted of men and women without much formal education. Moreover, the deposed propertied classes were termed Lishentsy ("the disenfranchised"), whose children were excluded from education. Eventually, some 200 Tsarist intellectuals such as writers, philosophers, scientists and engineers were deported to Germany on philosophers' ships in 1922 while others were deported to Latvia and Turkey in 1923.

During the revolutionary period, the pragmatic Bolsheviks employed "bourgeois experts" to manage the economy, industry, and agriculture and so learn from them. After the Russian Civil War (1917–1922), to achieve socialism the Soviet Union (1922–91) emphasized literacy and education in service to modernizing the country via an educated working class intelligentsia rather than an Ivory Tower intelligentsia. During the 1930s and 1950s, Joseph Stalin replaced Vladimir Lenin's intelligentsia with an intelligentsia that was loyal to him and believed in a specifically Soviet world view, thereby producing the pseudoscientific theories of Lysenkoism and Japhetic theory.

In October 1937, there was a mass extermination of Belarusian writers, artists and statespeople by the Soviet Union occupying authorities. This event marked the peak of the Great Purge and repressions of Belarusians in the Soviet-controlled area of eastern Belarus. More than 100 notable persons were executed, most of them on the night of 29–30 October 1937. Their innocence was later admitted by the Soviet Union after Joseph Stalin's death.

At the beginning of World War II, the Soviet secret police carried out mass executions of the Polish intelligentsia and military leadership in the 1940 Katyn massacre.

Fascism

The idealist philosopher Giovanni Gentile established the intellectual basis of Fascist ideology with the autoctisi (self-realisation) that distinguished between the good (active) intellectual and the bad (passive) intellectual:

Fascism combats [...] not intelligence, but intellectualism, [...] which is [...] a sickness of the intellect, [...] not a consequence of its abuse, because the intellect cannot be used too much. [...] [I]t derives from the false belief that one can segregate oneself from life.

— Giovanni Gentile, addressing a Congress of Fascist Culture, Bologna, 30 March 1925

To counter the "passive intellectual" who used his or her intellect abstractly, and was therefore "decadent", he proposed the "concrete thinking" of the active intellectual who applied intellect as praxis—a "man of action", like the Fascist Benito Mussolini, versus the decadent Communist intellectual Antonio Gramsci. The passive intellectual stagnates intellect by objectifying ideas, thus establishing them as objects. Hence the Fascist rejection of materialist logic, because it relies upon a priori principles improperly counter-changed with a posteriori ones that are irrelevant to the matter-in-hand in deciding whether or not to act.

In the praxis of Gentile's concrete thinking criteria, such consideration of the a priori toward the properly a posteriori constitutes impractical, decadent intellectualism. Moreover, this fascist philosophy occurred parallel to Actual Idealism, his philosophic system; he opposed intellectualism for its being disconnected from the active intelligence that gets things done, i.e. thought is killed when its constituent parts are labelled, and thus rendered as discrete entities.

Related to this, is the confrontation between the Spanish franquist General, Millán Astray, and the writer Miguel de Unamuno during the Dia de la Raza celebration at the University of Salamanca, in 1936, during the Spanish Civil War. The General exclaimed: ¡Muera la inteligencia! ¡Viva la Muerte! ("Death to the intelligentsia! Long live death!"); the Falangists applauded.

In Asia

China

Imperial China

Qin Shi Huang (246–210 BC), the first Emperor of unified China, consolidated political thought, and power, by suppressing freedom of speech at the suggestion of Chancellor Li Si, who justified such anti-intellectualism by accusing the intelligentsia of falsely praising the emperor, and dissenting through libel. From 213 to 206 BC, it was generally thought that the works of the Hundred Schools of Thought were incinerated, especially the Shi Jing (Classic of Poetry, c. 1000 BC) and the Shujing (Classic of History, c. 6th century BC). The exceptions were books by Qin historians, and books of Legalism, an early type of totalitarianism—and the Chancellor's philosophic school (see the Burning of books and burying of scholars). However, upon further inspection of Chinese historical annals such as the Shi Ji and the Han Shu, this was found not to be the case. The Qin Empire privately kept one copy of each of these books in the Imperial Library but it publicly ordered that the books should be banned. Those who owned copies were ordered to surrender the books to be burned; those who refused were executed. This eventually led to the loss of most ancient works of literature and philosophy when Xiang Yu burned down the Qin palace in 208 BC.

People's Republic of China

See also: Stinking Old Ninth

The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) was a politically violent decade which saw wide-ranging social engineering throughout the People's Republic of China by its leader Chairman Mao Zedong. After several national policy crises during which he was motivated by his desire to regain public prestige and control of the Chinese government, Mao announced on 16 May 1966 that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chinese society were permeated with liberal bourgeois elements who meant to restore capitalism to China and he also announced that people could only be removed after a post–revolutionary class struggle was waged against them. To that effect, China's youth nationally organized themselves into Red Guards and hunted the "liberal bourgeois" elements who were supposedly subverting the CCP and Chinese society. The Red Guards acted nationally, purging the country, the military, urban workers and the leaders of the CCP. The Red Guards were particularly aggressive when they attacked their teachers and professors, causing most schools and universities to be shut down once the Cultural Revolution began. Three years later in 1969, Mao declared that the Cultural Revolution was ended, yet the political intrigues continued until 1976, concluding with the arrest of the Gang of Four, the de facto end of the Cultural Revolution.

Democratic Kampuchea

Main article: Year Zero (political notion)
See also: Killing Fields

When the Communist Party of Kampuchea and the Khmer Rouge (1951–1981) established their regime as Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979) in Cambodia, their anti-intellectualism which idealised the country and demonised the cities was immediately imposed on the country in order to establish agrarian socialism, thus, they emptied cities in order to purge the Khmer nation of every traitor, enemy of the state and intellectual, often symbolised by eyeglasses.

Ottoman Empire

Some of the Armenian intellectuals who were detained, deported, and killed in the Armenian genocide of 1915

In the early stages of the Armenian genocide of 1915, around 2,300 Armenian intellectuals were deported from Constantinople (Istanbul) and most of them were subsequently murdered by the Ottoman government. The event has been described by historians as a decapitation strike, the purpose of which was intended to deprive the Armenian population of an intellectual leadership and a chance to resist.

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