BUCHAREST: Bivolaru on his way out of a courtroom in Bucharest in 2004. Photo: STRINGER / AFP / NTB
French police have arrested 41 people in a raid against a controversial yoga sect, including the group’s leader, guru Gregorian Bivolaru.
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A source in the French judiciary told the news agencies AFP and AP on Tuesday.
The sect is accused of a series of abuses under Bivolaru, which has repeatedly been in the spotlight of the judiciary in Romania, Sweden and France in recent years, the source says.
The 71-year-old guru is both a Swedish and a Romanian citizen.
The persons were arrested in the Paris region and southern France. Several of them are central members of the sect, AP and AFP are told. About 175 police officers took part in the raid, during which 26 women – several of whom were held against their will – were freed.
The women were confined in very poor surroundings, both in terms of space and hygiene, says the source.
Spiritual mentor
The yoga sect, called the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute (Misa), runs several yoga schools, among other things.
On its official website, yogaesoteric the group describes itself as the “biggest yoga school in Romania and Europe” and refers to Bivolaru as its “spiritual mentor”.
The success “comes from a traditional and strict approach to yoga”, says the group’s website. It involves rigorous study of both “theoretical and practical aspects, coherent integration of yoga values and practices in the Western cultural environment”.
The website also contains a page dedicated to “extraterrestrial civilizations” and tantric yoga, with tips on “techniques for amorous energy control”, “erotic positions” and on “the path to ecstasy”.
PROTEST: Members of the sect protested on 20 March 2004 when Bivolaru was arrested on suspicion of having sex with an underage girl. Photo: STR / Reuters / NTB
Accused of human trafficking and rape
According to AFP and AP’s source, the sect has several hundred members. Tuesday’s arrests take place in light of an investigation by the prosecutor’s office in Paris, which has investigated allegations of abductions, rape and human trafficking.
It was the French human rights organization Human Rights League that first began to investigate the accusations against the sect.
After receiving statements from twelve former members, they contacted the prosecution.
– Misa used tantric yoga and brainwashing to get victims to accept sexual relations and eliminate any notion of consent, the legal source told AFP.
RED NOTICE: The picture shows Interpol’s red notice on Bivolaru. Photo: AP / NTB
Paid for yoga classes with phone sex
Several women from various countries have come forward and said that they have been victims of the Misa organisation. In 2008, the sect was kicked out by the International Yoga Federation and the European Yoga Alliance because the group’s commercial practices were considered “illegal” by the other organizations.
The newspaper The Liberation Daily, which first reported the arrests, writes that Bivolaru was arrested in a house in Ivry-sur-Seine near Paris. According to witnesses, he took female followers to the house for a “sexual initiation” into tantric yoga, the newspaper writes.
The source AFP has spoken to says the sect’s female members paid for the so-called yoga workshops, or yoga classes, through phone sex, while the men did manual work.
These yoga classes were solely dedicated to satisfying the main suspect’s wishes, says the source.
Another legal source describes the case as “crazy” and says the sect is reminiscent of “mafia or pimping disguised as philosophy”.
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Published: 29.11.23 at 01:19
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2023-11-29 00:19:20
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