Copenhagen, Denmark - The national broadcaster Danmarks Radio (DR) can expect to be sued following Sunday’s documentary about the Christian fundamentalist Evangelist and Faderhuset sects.
The documentary, carried in the “21 Søndag programme, contended that children associated with the groups are traumatized and even subjected to torture-like treatment.
The programme has already resulted in a Copenhagen Social Democratic councillor Lars Rasmussen reporting both Evangelist and Faderhuset to the police.
Dirty tricks
The founder of Evangelist – Christian Hedegaard – has told Hillerødposten that he intends to sue DR.
“I understand that DR has done a dirty trick at home. We will be suing them. This is one of the worst things that we have been subjected to yet,” Hedegaard says in an email to Hillerødposten. Hedegaard is currently on a missionary visit to the United States and has not yet seen the documentary.
Demons
In the programme, an eight-year-old girl tells of her fear of Evangelist members thinking she has a demon in her.
“I’m afraid that they think I have a demon – because then the adults will hold me and shout in my face,” she writes to the Børns Vilkår (Children’s Welfare in Denmark) organization.
Other children tell of torture-like experiences at a Faderhuset camp in which they are closed in and subjected to violence.
Evangelist: Deeply offensive
Evangelist management has called a news conference at its headquarters in Hillerød, and says in an email to politiken.dk:
“We feel that DR1’s connection between Evangelist and the case about child neglect at Faderhuset is deeply offensive and mendacious. We have no contacts with Faderhuset and distance ourselves from the things that are described in the programme,” the email says.