ICSA TODAY 30
Correspondents
,
Reports
Against Radicalization of Adolescents
and Young People and for the
Promotion of Peace and Education),
which has financed several activities,
including two courses about
addressing radicalization, directed
toward social workers, psychologists,
educators, and police (particularly
from the antiterrorist sector). Each
course lasts from 24 to 26 hours and
tries to target all the areas involved in
preventing radicalization, including
history, religion, sociology, psychology,
and security studies. Another course
(lasting 24 hours) is addressed to
young asylum seekers and promotes
psychosocial abilities. Two more
courses also will be starting for
immigrant adolescents and women.
In the next month, SOS Abusi
Psicologici will be opening a new
center for assisting harassed workers.
The center will be located in Gorizia, a
town 40 km away from Udine.
Another important mission is the
EU project RASMORAD, led by the
Italian Penitentiary Department,
which includes among its partners
EXIT SCS ONLUS led by Cristina
Caparesi, who has been working
to produce two documents for the
project. One document is a collection
of best practices on deradicalization,
disengagement, and rehabilitation the
other focuses on the methodologies
used among the project partners in
prisons and for probation (for more
details on the project, see
rasmorad.org/).
RASMORAD workshops on risk
assessment were held in Brussels,
Belgium (September 2017) on exit
strategies in Bucharest, Romania
(December 2017) and on experiences
of radicalization in prison in Agen and
Toulose, France (February 2018). An
upcoming workshop on policy making
and cross-sector cooperation will take
place in Lisbon, Spain.
EXIT SCS has been chosen to
conduct training on extremism and
radicalization for teachers in Italy’s
Friuli Venezia Giulia region, followed by
a 24-hour course in Milan for a group
of school directors and head teachers.
Report From Poland
Piotr T. Nowakowski
On March 2, 2018, Piotr Andryszczak,
a well-known Polish expert on the
Jehovah’s Witnesses, discussed on his
blog the issue of the organization’s
ostracizing it’s former members. “Cult
members often isolate themselves
from their friends, family, and even
society in general. Is that the case with
Jehovah’s Witnesses?,” Andyszczak
quotes the Polish version of The
Watchtower.1 “A good question,”
he says, and argues that such an
attitude may be observed also among
Jehovah’s Witnesses. If a member
ceases to agree with the organization’s
doctrine, that member shall be
excluded. Andryszczak illustrates his
article with several examples from
the sources published by Jehovah’s
Witnesses.
Report From Spain and
Latin America
Luis Santamaria
Translated by John Paul Lennon
Eugenio Semino, Senior Citizen´s
Defense (Defensor de la Tercera Edad)
in Buenos Aires City (Argentina),
explained last December how
“organized groups working to
dispossess the elderly continue to
grow.” In this respect the expert
commented that “one of the methods
that increasingly appear in the
exploitation of the elderly involves
religious sects that identify lonely
elderly and use coercive persuasion,
promising them company, care, and
attention, which they do deliver in
the short term. However, the aim is to
gradually, in the short or long term,
take over their rights and access their
income.”1
Groups of Christian Origin
Also in December, in San Carlos de
Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina, family
judge María Marcela Pájaro authorized
a blood transfusion for a 6-year-old
boy, whose Jehovah’s Witness parents
were refusing to allow it. The decision
was based on Article 6 of the UN’s
Committee for the Rights of the Child,
specifically on the child’s right to life,
and the right to health as described in
the document’s Article 24.
A pregnant Jehovah’s Witness woman
had a problem after a Caesarean
intervention and became seriously ill
after refusing a blood transfusion. The
38-year-old was a native of Zonda,
San Juan Province, Argentina. Doctors
found alternative procedures and were
finally able to save the mother and the
child.
Groups of Asian Origin
On March 11, the fourteenth
anniversary of the jihadist attempts
in Madrid, the “Ambassador of Peace”
Prem Rawat delivered an address at
the Caja Mágica, Madrid, where he
presented the book When the Desert
Blooms. More than three thousand
attended. It is worth remembering
that, in the 1970s and ‘80s, this guru
was known as Maharaji, leader of
Divine Light Mission, later called Elan
Vital. The organization operates in
Spain now under the name The Peace
is Possible Foundation.
Esoteric Groups and Afro-American
Cults
A 24-year-old court employee from
Piura (Perú), Tania Jirón Guerrero, was
left with burns over 80 percent of
her body after submitting to a ritual
session of witchcraft on December
9, 2017, in the district of Tumán,
Lambayeque (Peru). She suffered
second-degree burns after candles
were placed around her body and she
was sprayed with potions. Apparently,
an accident occurred that caused the
severe burning and led to her death.
In February 2018, the Supreme
Court of Corrientes (Argentina)
Correspondents
,
Reports
Against Radicalization of Adolescents
and Young People and for the
Promotion of Peace and Education),
which has financed several activities,
including two courses about
addressing radicalization, directed
toward social workers, psychologists,
educators, and police (particularly
from the antiterrorist sector). Each
course lasts from 24 to 26 hours and
tries to target all the areas involved in
preventing radicalization, including
history, religion, sociology, psychology,
and security studies. Another course
(lasting 24 hours) is addressed to
young asylum seekers and promotes
psychosocial abilities. Two more
courses also will be starting for
immigrant adolescents and women.
In the next month, SOS Abusi
Psicologici will be opening a new
center for assisting harassed workers.
The center will be located in Gorizia, a
town 40 km away from Udine.
Another important mission is the
EU project RASMORAD, led by the
Italian Penitentiary Department,
which includes among its partners
EXIT SCS ONLUS led by Cristina
Caparesi, who has been working
to produce two documents for the
project. One document is a collection
of best practices on deradicalization,
disengagement, and rehabilitation the
other focuses on the methodologies
used among the project partners in
prisons and for probation (for more
details on the project, see
rasmorad.org/).
RASMORAD workshops on risk
assessment were held in Brussels,
Belgium (September 2017) on exit
strategies in Bucharest, Romania
(December 2017) and on experiences
of radicalization in prison in Agen and
Toulose, France (February 2018). An
upcoming workshop on policy making
and cross-sector cooperation will take
place in Lisbon, Spain.
EXIT SCS has been chosen to
conduct training on extremism and
radicalization for teachers in Italy’s
Friuli Venezia Giulia region, followed by
a 24-hour course in Milan for a group
of school directors and head teachers.
Report From Poland
Piotr T. Nowakowski
On March 2, 2018, Piotr Andryszczak,
a well-known Polish expert on the
Jehovah’s Witnesses, discussed on his
blog the issue of the organization’s
ostracizing it’s former members. “Cult
members often isolate themselves
from their friends, family, and even
society in general. Is that the case with
Jehovah’s Witnesses?,” Andyszczak
quotes the Polish version of The
Watchtower.1 “A good question,”
he says, and argues that such an
attitude may be observed also among
Jehovah’s Witnesses. If a member
ceases to agree with the organization’s
doctrine, that member shall be
excluded. Andryszczak illustrates his
article with several examples from
the sources published by Jehovah’s
Witnesses.
Report From Spain and
Latin America
Luis Santamaria
Translated by John Paul Lennon
Eugenio Semino, Senior Citizen´s
Defense (Defensor de la Tercera Edad)
in Buenos Aires City (Argentina),
explained last December how
“organized groups working to
dispossess the elderly continue to
grow.” In this respect the expert
commented that “one of the methods
that increasingly appear in the
exploitation of the elderly involves
religious sects that identify lonely
elderly and use coercive persuasion,
promising them company, care, and
attention, which they do deliver in
the short term. However, the aim is to
gradually, in the short or long term,
take over their rights and access their
income.”1
Groups of Christian Origin
Also in December, in San Carlos de
Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina, family
judge María Marcela Pájaro authorized
a blood transfusion for a 6-year-old
boy, whose Jehovah’s Witness parents
were refusing to allow it. The decision
was based on Article 6 of the UN’s
Committee for the Rights of the Child,
specifically on the child’s right to life,
and the right to health as described in
the document’s Article 24.
A pregnant Jehovah’s Witness woman
had a problem after a Caesarean
intervention and became seriously ill
after refusing a blood transfusion. The
38-year-old was a native of Zonda,
San Juan Province, Argentina. Doctors
found alternative procedures and were
finally able to save the mother and the
child.
Groups of Asian Origin
On March 11, the fourteenth
anniversary of the jihadist attempts
in Madrid, the “Ambassador of Peace”
Prem Rawat delivered an address at
the Caja Mágica, Madrid, where he
presented the book When the Desert
Blooms. More than three thousand
attended. It is worth remembering
that, in the 1970s and ‘80s, this guru
was known as Maharaji, leader of
Divine Light Mission, later called Elan
Vital. The organization operates in
Spain now under the name The Peace
is Possible Foundation.
Esoteric Groups and Afro-American
Cults
A 24-year-old court employee from
Piura (Perú), Tania Jirón Guerrero, was
left with burns over 80 percent of
her body after submitting to a ritual
session of witchcraft on December
9, 2017, in the district of Tumán,
Lambayeque (Peru). She suffered
second-degree burns after candles
were placed around her body and she
was sprayed with potions. Apparently,
an accident occurred that caused the
severe burning and led to her death.
In February 2018, the Supreme
Court of Corrientes (Argentina)
