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Argentina
Since 1987 the Family has been the subject of 11 investigations in Argentina. Eight of these resulted in court proceedings being instituted against Family members. In each case the allegations were unsubstantiated and Family members were found innocent of all charges.
As of October 1993,
Argentine authorities have thoroughly examined over 230 children of Family
members. Some of these children were subjected to repeated degrading and
painful physical examinations by court-appointed doctors intent on finding
evidence of abuse. Nevertheless, the children were all found to be in good
mental and physical health and displayed no evidence of any physical,
sexual, or psychological abuse.
Buenos Aires: October 27, 1989May 23, 1990
One of the most serious investigations of the Family in Argentina occurred in 1989. On October 27, two Family communities were raided by scores of heavily armed police. Many adult Family members were arrested and held for two weeks, while 18 children were placed in state custody. The charges laid following this raid formed the basis for three separate court actions.
The first involved drug charges. The police alleged that a small quantity of cocaine was found on the property. (This was later found to have been planted by the police during the raids.) Judge Leónidas Moldes, of the San Isidro Court in Buenos Aires, dismissed the drug charges on January 11, 1990, stating:
I possess no element whatsoever which might permit to impute to any of the 13 defendants the tenancy of the seized drug. As regards to the facilitation of dwelling and instigating crimes for the consumption of drugs from the simple reading of the bibliographic material seized, it cannot be deduced that the group and the members of the same may propose the use of drugs, but instead all the contrary.1
The second case involved the welfare of the children apprehended by social services. On December 19, 1989, the children were returned to the custody of their parents by Judge Eleonora Mercedes Fernandez de Zingoni of the San Isidro Court. In her official judgment she stated:
After analyzing the different points brought out in relation to each individual case (e.g., social-environmental reports, declarations from relatives, personal contact between myself and each one of the minors), and taking into account that the parents and/or guardians of the minors who live here at the residence were left in liberty and that those from the residence were not indicted, I concluded on the basis of my sincere conviction that the minors find themselves in an environment fit for their physical and moral development, due to which the extreme conditions required for this Court to intervene according to what is stipulated in article 10, clause 2a of Provincial Law number 10067, are not evident.2
The social worker who investigated the Family wrote the following comment in her report dated November 29, 1989: "In the [Family residence] one could feel a calm atmosphere, where the children have all their needs met, are cared for and protected and appear to be healthy, stimulated, and normal. It does not appear as if the adult members of the home have any negative attitudes towards the minor children or may be trying to pervert them."
The third case involved accusations of child abuse. On May 23, 1990, Judge Alejandro de Korvez of the San Isidro Court dismissed these charges, stating:
I understand that in these proceedings the criminal responsibilities of those summoned as regards the unlawful situations on which the filing of this case was produced, do not appear proven. [In the] socio-environmental reports, medical-psychological examinations of the minors, examination of the seized literary and audio-visual materials do not appear any elements which would enervate the statements of the summoned as they absolutely deny the commission of the unlawful acts.3
Buenos Aires: September 1, 1993July 27, 2004
The largest action against Family communities to date took place on September 1, 1993, when police raided five Family residences in Buenos Aires, arresting (and imprisoning) 21 adults and seizing 137 children of Family members. It was the largest number of children from a religious group taken into government custody at once in recent Argentine history. News of the raids and the sensational allegations, which included kidnapping, child trafficking, prostitution, slavery, and child abuse, made lurid headlines around the world.
The children of Family members were held in government custody for three and a half months, while 21 adults were imprisoned for the same period. All Family children were forced to undergo multiple psychological evaluations, as well as painful and degrading medical/gynecological examinations. Doctors for the prosecution, citing preliminary test results, claimed some signs of psychological distress in 16 of the 137 children tested. These results were later nullified by the court as unscientific, having been improperly conducted under duress. New psychological tests revealed no abnormalities. No evidence of abuse, sexual or otherwise, was found in any of the tests.
In a show of solidarity, Family members staged peaceful protests outside Argentine embassies, consulates, trade centers, and airline offices in major cities around the world. In Argentina, the Family launched a vigorous media and legal campaign, lodging an appeal and demanding the dismissal of all charges and the immediate release of the adults and children.
On December 13, the Federal Appeals Court of San Martin, Buenos Aires, ruled in favor of the Family, declaring the federal judge who ordered the raids, Judge Roberto Marquevich, legally incompetent to rule in the case.4 The court ordered the immediate release of all the adults, who by then had been imprisoned for 104 days. The court also ordered that all Family children be released from institutions and returned to the custody of their parents. In their 200-page majority ruling, Federal Judges Horacio Enrique Prack and Alberto Mansur methodically rejected and disproved each of the charges brought against the Family:
It was initially stated [by Judge Marquevich] that [the children] showed signs of supposed abuses of a sexual nature. Nevertheless, the medical examinations did not ratify this presumption as is evidenced from the examinations where the results were absolutely negative regarding this subject. There has not been the slightest shred of evidence to prove that any of the corruptive acts described above have actually occurred to any of the minors named in the proceedings.5
The allegations of abuse were put forward by embittered ex-members of the Family. Documented evidence later showed these same individuals to have been active in cases brought against the Family in other countries. After studying these ex-members' sworn statements, the appeals court stated:
[They] are incompatible with the results of the medical reports. Their own declarations reveal an apparent eagerness to exaggerate vague memories of past events, to the point of having resorted to accounts, which have been proven beyond doubt to be false and have therefore significantly weakened their declarations in terms of their credibility.6
The Court of Appeals also had harsh words for Judge Marquevich's prejudiced mishandling of the investigation.
It is evident that an illegal investigation violating the clear rules of public order has been initiated. This manner of proceeding represents an arbitrary use of penal power, by removing the case from the framework of rationality inherent in the fundamental right of the defense to a proper trial. This panorama puts in evidence an anachronistic continuation of the most severe inquisitive system, one in which people were summoned only to confess their sins, being considered "witches" or "heretics."7
Legal infractions committed during the investigation were reported, including a report that the five Family women arrested were imprisoned for the first eight days in inhumane conditions. After these reports and prior to the appeals court's ruling, former judges and members of the Buenos Aires Bar Association (not representing or associated with the Family) launched a petition for Judge Marquevich's impeachment, which was eventually brought before the Argentine House of Representatives. This was one of the very few cases brought to the House of Representatives for impeachment of a federal judge.
The courts also warned of the dangers of the "brainwashing" argument brought to bear in the case, and how it is used to stigmatize members of new religions:
To claim that proselytism has become ideological subversion; that the initial persuading of someone to an exotic way of life, which is protected by the right to religious freedom has become brainwashing; that missionaries have become subversive agents; that houses of spiritual retreat or monastic seclusion have become prisons; and finally, that mystical adherence to religious devotion has become psychopathic behavior, will undoubtedly bring us back to the time when society was authoritarian and repressed free thinking, limiting and castrating the freely chosen lifestyle of each individual.8
The judges went so far as to point out that
it is not the place of the courts or the general populace to judge the
beliefs of minorities: "[The opinion] of the majority as to what is morally
correct or not is not necessarily right; many times it will be the product
of prejudices or obscure ideas, and even when this is not the case, the
majority of the population has no right to establish how others must live."
On December 23, 1993, after 114 days in state custody, the Family children
were reunited with their parents. In the meantime, their residences had been
looted and stripped bare by the police.
The prosecutor of the Appeals Court of San Martin, Pablo Hernan Quiroga, promptly lodged two appeals before the Supreme Court to the appeals court ruling. One affirmed that Judge Marquevich should have jurisdictional authority in this case and another appealed all points of the appeals court's decision. These appeals were overturned by the Supreme Court on June 29, 1995, and the case reached final closure on July 27, 2004, little over a month after Judge Marquevich was impeached and removed from office.
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Footnotes:
1 Federal Court of San
Isidro, Case No. 34.269, Buenos Aires, Argentina, January 11, 1990.
2 Minor's Court of San Isidro, Case No. 17.142, Buenos Aires, Argentina, December 19, 1989.
3 Provincial Court of San Isidro, Case No. 34.269, Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 23, 1990.
4 San Martin Court of Appeals, Case 81/89 "Cavazza, Juan C. and others, on Inf. Art.125, 139, 140, 142, Par.l, 142 bis, 210, 293 of the Code of Proceedings and art.3 of Law 23,592," Federal Court of San Isidro, 1 Sec.2 Office II, Reg. 443. Federal Judges: Horacio Enrique Prack, Alberto Mansur, Daniel Mario Rudi, Buenos Aires, Argentina, December 13, 1993.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.