The recent resolution by the Council of Europe on freedom of religion and religious minorities in France is drawing comments from religious groups and non-governmental organizations.

In the Nov. 18 resolution, the Assembly of the Council of Europe called on governments of member states “to use normal procedures of criminal and civil law against illegal practices carried out in the name of groups of a religious, esoteric or spiritual nature.”

Although a member state is perfectly at liberty to take any measures it deems necessary to protect its public order, the resolution says, the authorized restrictions on the freedoms guaranteed by Articles 9 to 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights—freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association—are subject to specific conditions. The resolution asks the French government to reconsider this law and clarify the definition of the terms “offense” and “offender.”

“The resolution is a clear and significant message to the French government and to the new National Assembly members,” says John Graz, public affairs and religious liberty director for the Seventh-day Adventist world church. “The message is: ‘Your Anti-Sect law and policy is not appropriate to the European standard of religious freedom.’”

The so-called “Anti-Sect” law, adopted last year, unfairly targeted religious minorities, according to critics. The law had the potential for the dissolution of religious groups, but in September French delegates for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe indicated second thoughts by issuing a statement that said this would only happen “under very restrictive conditions, and as a very last resort.”

“The effects of the French policy against sects encourage discrimination and feed intolerance in the society against religious minorities,” Graz says.

“This language [the resolution] has tremendous impact on the protection of religious and spiritual groups in France and across Europe,” says Joseph Grieboski, president of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy in Washington, D.C., United States.

“This is good news for religious freedom in Europe,” says Graz. “I am very pleased to see that the position we [the Adventist Church] have defended is in harmony with the resolution.”