At the third Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), held in Vienna on June 29 and 30, 2026, under the title “Prevention of Torture and Ill-Treatment: Strengthening Co-operation and Implementation,” the ALLATRA Global Research Center focused attention on an earlier stage of escalation: coordinated stigmatization, dehumanizing labels, and institutional pressure.

ALLATRA convened a side event titled “From Stigmatization to Ill-Treatment: Lessons from Russia and Beyond, Early Warning Signs, Human Dignity, and Prevention of Abuse.” Seven speakers discussed cases involving Russia, Ukraine, China, Belgium, and the transnational information environment.

Framing the discussion: When does social stigmatization become a systemic human rights risk?

The discussion was moderated by Vladimir Ivanov, a lawyer, legal researcher, and representative of the ALLATRA Global Research Center in Bulgaria. According to his own account, he previously served as an arbitrator and has worked on cases before the European Court of Human Rights.

He posed the event’s central question: At what precise point does social stigmatization become a systemic human rights risk? Systemic ill-treatment rarely begins with physical violence, Ivanov said: “It begins with words. With institutional labels.”

The path from rhetoric to ill-treatment followed a pattern, he said. When public figures or state-controlled media systematically labeled an organization, spiritual movement, or minority as “subversive,” hostile to society,” a “cult,” or a “sect,” the aim was dehumanization. Those affected would then no longer be perceived by the public as citizens with rights, but as a threat that had to be neutralized.

Constitutional theory from Italy: Why anti-discrimination rules can fail in practice

Alberto Contu, a researcher, legal philosopher, specialist in federalism, expert in legal hermeneutics and behavioral neuroscience, and senior adviser at the Institute for Advanced Studies and Cooperation in Italy, joined by video message.

He distinguished between three forms of stigmatization: attributing supposed anthropological defects based on ethnic characteristics, making improper generalizations through stereotypes, and classifying people according to socio-biological attributes.

Contu cited Sardinia as an example, where the label “shepherds” had persisted for centuries. Behind it was the prejudice that pastoralism caused banditry and kidnappings. He said authorities in other regions of Italy had consequently taken unconstitutional measures, including registering Sardinian shepherds who had moved there as a potentially criminal group.

Lawyers knew that declaring a principle was one thing and actually realizing rights was another. What mattered was their practical application by police, courts, and public authorities. He called for a move away from the “criminal law of suspicion” and for the enforcement of a culture of due process.

Focus on Belgium: Applicants with Arab or African names receive 30 to 50 percent fewer invitations, according to UNIA

Dr. Aicha Bacha, a political scientist and the founder and president of the European Center for Development and Geostrategic Research and Analysis in Belgium, spoke from Brussels.

She began by commending Belgium’s system of legal protection and its federal balance between language communities. She then cited data from the Interfederal Centre for Equal Opportunities (UNIA). In correspondence tests, in which identical applications were sent under different names, applicants with Arab or African names reportedly received 30 to 50 percent fewer invitations to job interviews. The only difference between the applications was the name.

Almost a quarter of Brussels residents were of non-European origin, she said, yet these communities were barely represented in senior public administration positions.

Bacha described the case of a young woman whom she called “Fatima”: born and educated in Brussels, fluent in four languages, a law graduate with honors, and a volunteer in free legal aid for more than five years. Seventy applications to Belgian federal authorities were unsuccessful. “At some point, you stop reading the rejection letters. Not because it hurts any less, but because they all say the same thing, and not one of them ever gives the real reason,” Bacha quoted the woman as saying.

Inclusive institutions operated more flexibly and effectively, Bacha said. Her contribution was not an accusation but an invitation to close the gap between promise and practice.

Testimony from Russia: Fifteen masked, armed men broke down the door of a geophysicist’s apartment

The next speaker’s identity was withheld for security reasons. The woman holds a master’s degree in geology, had worked as a geophysicist since 2012, and joined the volunteers of the ALLATRA platform in February 2019. According to her account, her work involved analyzing scientific climate data, writing specialist articles, preparing presentations, and organizing scientific conferences.

She said a coordinated smear campaign had begun in 2015. For seven years, defamatory material had regularly appeared in the media, labeling the platform a “destructive sect” and an “apocalyptic cult.” The latter label, she said, referred to its open discussion of the climate crisis.

According to the witness, on August 8, 2023, the Prosecutor General’s Office designated ALLATRA an “undesirable organization” without presenting credible evidence. The platform had ceased all activity in the country since then. It was precisely after that, she said, that the raids began.

At 6:30 a.m. on June 5, 2024, a group of approximately fifteen people entered her apartment. Neighbors described members of the OMON special police unit in full tactical gear, masked and carrying assault rifles, accompanied by security service officers. The witness herself was abroad on vacation. The door was broken down, no court order was presented, and they did not wait for a lawyer. For three hours, the officers searched the empty apartment, removed documents, and scattered books across the floor. The witness believes those who organized the operation knew she was away and intended it as a public spectacle for her neighbors.

According to her account, officers searched four more apartments belonging to former volunteers that same day. In one case she described, an educator with a master’s degree in philology, whom she called Elena, was at home with her sister. When the women did not open the door, the officers sawed through the lock. Both were forced to lie face down on the floor. According to the account, Elena’s sister was held at gunpoint for more than an hour with her arms twisted behind her back. They were denied a lawyer, and their phones were immediately confiscated. The operation was filmed for a television report in which the women were later portrayed as terrorists.

During questioning, Elena was allegedly told: “You are forbidden to talk about the climate. This subject is forbidden.” She later wrote: “After everything that happened, I still sleep badly.”

Three of those detained were released that same evening and left the country. According to the witness, a professional photographer who had won several national and international awards and was a member of the journalists’ union spent a year in prison.

Another wave of searches followed in August 2024. The witness said she learned through indirect sources that people in one region had been tortured with electric shocks and plastic bags placed over their heads. Criminal proceedings against one of those affected had reportedly not been initiated because there were clear signs of torture on his body. When attempts were made to contact them, those affected replied: “It is better that you do not know what we went through.”

In December, ten people were arrested simultaneously during another wave of raids in the capital. According to the witness, in June 2025 the Prosecutor General’s Office designated ALLATRA an extremist organization. As a result, even mentioning the platform could be treated as a criminal offense.

Her lawyer had told her: “Do not return. You will be arrested and imprisoned. This charge carries a six-year sentence.” She summed up her own situation as follows: “I am not a politician. I am a geologist and geophysicist. I organized climate conferences and worked on scientific articles.”

Falun Dafa and Shen Yun: 298 recorded threats worldwide since March 2024

Leoš Strnad, a representative of the Falun Dafa Association in the Czech Republic, addressed transnational repression. According to the definition adopted by G7 leaders in June 2025 that he cited, the term describes a form of foreign interference in which states or their proxies intimidate, harass, harm, or coerce people beyond their own borders.

Within China, he said, arrests had been preceded by a broad propaganda campaign that turned neighbors, colleagues, police officers, judges, and doctors against those targeted. Outside China, the methods looked different, but the logic remained similar.

Strnad described four combined forms of pressure: direct intimidation through bomb and firearm threats; disinformation using fake accounts and impersonation; institutional pressure on theaters, public authorities, and journalists; and legal and administrative pressure through complaints and lawsuits. The combination was dangerous, he said: “The combination of these methods was dangerous. A bomb threat did not have to be carried out to intimidate a theater manager.”

His organization’s database had recorded 298 threats worldwide against Falun Gong or Shen Yun Performing Arts since March 2024. On December 10, 2025, Prague Congress Centre received a letter demanding the cancellation of an upcoming performance. In April of this year, it received bomb threats if the performance went ahead. Physical attacks this year had also occurred in Jeju, South Korea; outside the British Museum in London; in Flushing, New York; and in South Carolina, where a 70-year-old practitioner was attacked.

Strnad proposed four priorities for democratic states: identify patterns, preserve evidence, protect affected individuals and institutions, and investigate and hold those responsible to account.

The common denominator: Transnational anti-cult networks and the role of “RACIRS

Ivanov then placed the cases in context. Strikingly similar labels were used against Falun Dafa, foundations of the “Federation for World Peace,” ALLATRA, and other civil society actors—usually “sect” or “cult,” accompanied by portrayals of them as socially dangerous or manipulative.

In the research center’s assessment, these similarities were not coincidental but reflected transnational anti-cult networks. Russia had promoted such networks for years. Alexander Dworkin and the Russian Association of Centers for the Study of Religions and Sects (“RACIRS) were named. A conference in 2008 had deepened cooperation between Russian and Chinese anti-cult actors; a new wave of persecution against Falun Dafa followed.

Ivanov said many scholars of religion, sociologists, lawyers, and human rights defenders had classified key assumptions and methods of the anti-cult movement as pseudoscientific.

International law perspective: When legal protection exists formally but becomes inaccessible in practice

Mariia Anapreichyk, a researcher in international and European law at the ALLATRA Global Research Center in Switzerland, examined the phase preceding institutional pressure in greater depth.

Labels such as “sect” or “cult” served as a shortcut to stigmatization because they implied irrationality, danger, and incompatibility with “normal” society. The range of targets was continually expanding, she said, extending to political parties and entire populations. She referred to a Russian campaign that portrayed Ukraine as a whole as a “hypersect”; another “RACIRS representative, Archpriest Alexander Nowopaschin, had publicly called Ukrainian citizens cannibals.

Anapreichyk referred to the guidelines issued by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) on the protection of human rights defenders, which include a dedicated section on combating stigmatization and marginalization. Ten years later, the 2024 report by UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association Gina Romero showed that the problem persisted.

A central issue was access to effective remedies. Formally, stigmatized organizations could defend their reputations. But if doing so required litigation and lawyers in several countries, legal protection became illusory.

Legal research from Latvia: Proposal to consider “information terrorism” as a separate criminal offense

Jevgenija Malecka, a lawyer, former law enforcement officer, practicing human rights defender, and legal researcher from Latvia, presented her research concept.

In her analysis, every physical escalation was preceded by a phase she called the “pre-kinetic phase,” meaning the period before physical violence was used. The difference from conventional terrorism lay in the means employed: in conventional terrorism it was physical violence; here it was information itself. Information terrorism used “delegated harm,” in which the organizer created the environment and others inflicted the harm.

Malecka analyzed the phenomenon according to the traditional elements of a criminal offense: the protected interest was psychological security and cognitive resilience; the objective element consisted of systematic, coordinated campaigns involving dehumanization and the construction of an enemy image; perpetrators could be individuals or networks using algorithms, bots, and media channels; and the subjective element required direct intent.

She formulated the warning sign as follows: “When the label replaces evidence and reputation replaces facts.”

She appealed to the scientific and legal communities to study the field across disciplines and consider introducing a separate offense into national and international criminal codes. In her assessment, if the problem were left unaddressed, systematic dehumanization campaigns could escalate into ill-treatment, torture, mass violence, crimes against humanity, and, in the most extreme cases, genocide. Recognizing it as a criminal offense would not restrict freedom of expression, she said, but provide a legal safeguard.

Questions left open by the event

The participants emphasized that torture and ill-treatment rarely arose in isolation. Long before physical violence became visible, systematic public discrediting could strip people and communities of their dignity, legitimacy, and equal protection in society.

The questions Anapreichyk posed at the end remained open: At what stage should preventive measures begin, and where was the boundary between criticism protected by freedom of expression and actions leading to dehumanization, discrimination, and social exclusion?

Conclusion

The event thus returned to its starting point: Anyone seeking to prevent torture and ill-treatment effectively must not wait to respond until violence becomes visible. Prevention begins where stigmatization, dehumanization, and institutional pressure create the conditions in which people lose their dignity and their protection as equal rights-holders.