CultNEWS101 Articles: 10/21/2025

[Patrick Ryan]

Coercive Control, MLM, Russia, Ashram Shambala

MassLive: ‘Coercive control’ now helps define domestic violence in Mass., an important gain for those facing harm (Viewpoint)

"When I began working at a domestic violence shelter years ago, I expected the stories of physical and sexual abuse. What I didn’t expect was the other stuff – the stories about not being allowed to choose what to wear or what to eat, not being able to leave the house or talk to family on the phone, not being allowed to sleep or to take needed medicine or even voice an opinion.

Changes to skilled worker visas are a reaction to Reform UK and far right, say RMT workersChanges to skilled worker visas are a reaction to Reform UK and far right, say RMT workers
I didn’t expect the story about being taken out to the back yard and shown where someone could bury a body, if they ever wanted to.

Today, we call this other stuff “coercive control.” It’s not the kind of controlling behavior that is just annoying. It’s the kind that is scary, that you would be afraid to defy, that makes it hard to have any sense of control over your life.

Last year, coercive control became part of the legal definition of domestic violence in Massachusetts. It is defined as a “pattern of controlling behavior that intentionally causes a person to reasonably fear physical harm or causes a reduced sense of physical safety or autonomy.”

This is a game changer. It is the most helpful legal change I have seen in the field of domestic violence in decades.

Massachusetts courts issue close to 40,000 restraining orders a year, and reports from the field are that now many of these orders explicitly forbid coercive control.

To be clear, the new law doesn’t mean someone can be arrested for coercive control on its own. It only allows survivors to apply for a restraining order from a local judge who will decide if the application meets the new legal threshold. If the judge does issue an order and it is violated, then police can make an arrest.

But the hope is the order deters that behavior, allowing more people to live a safe, dignified life.

October is domestic violence awareness month, and it’s a great time to get the word out about this new law. In a time of fiscal restraint, making sure people know about this new law is something concrete we can do that costs nothing but will make our communities safer.

We need to be cautious. Survivors, especially those from marginalized or unprotected communities, take a risk when they seek help from the legal system. Not every judge will help even when help is warranted. If a survivor’s order is denied it can in some cases increase danger, especially if the offender is high-risk or feels they have nothing to lose. As a field, we rely far too heavily on an imperfect legal system for answers and neglect prevention and education at great cost.

Still, one of our tools to reduce domestic violence just got stronger."

The Spinoff: Inside Legacy: the MLM that thrives in secrecy

"Behind diamond emojis, business conferences and the quest for ‘financial freedom’ lies a multi-level-marketing scheme shrouded in secrecy. Janhavi Gosavi spoke to former members of the Legacy programme in Wellington who were drawn in by promises of ‘retire by 30’."

HemeroSectas: With the Julia brothers' lawyer defending him, the Russian accused of leading a cult strikes back.

"On March 28, Konstantin Rudnev, founder of the Ashram Shambala sect, was arrested, along with others, at this city's airport. The case of the Russian man accused of being the leader of a coercive transnational criminal organization is once again gaining media attention after his defense attorney and some of the accused women—including the guru's wife—warned of irregularities in the case. They claim that Rudnev is in prison because he opposes Vladimir Putin, the president of the Russian Federation.

Attorney Carlos Broitman—who has defended Eduardo and Gustavo Juliá, Ibar Pérez Corradi, Matías Garfunkel, and Mariana Nannis in other high-profile cases—represented Rudnev, a prisoner in the Rawson federal prison and accused of leading an organization that, for the purposes of sex trafficking and slavery, recruited a 22-year-old pregnant woman brought from Russia. She gave birth to a baby in a Bariloche hospital on March 21.

Broitman, who is also representing 16 foreign women detained alongside Rudnev, maintained that there is no solid evidence in the case: "They haven't presented any new evidence related to the legal case in Argentina for seven months. They want to iron out the case, to make it dissipate."

Speaking to El Cordillerano, Belyakova Nadezhda, one of the accused Russian women (who, like the others, remains at liberty during the trial, although she is prohibited from leaving the country), stated: “The cells were very small, they only had a stone bed, everything was dark, with no room for anything. They took off our clothes and made us spread our legs.”

Nearly seven months after the news of the arrest of Rudnev and several followers of the cult he founded more than 30 years ago in Siberia, the defense strategy is focused on media coverage of the case. They even filed complaints against the Prosecutor's Office and attempted a recusal, although the case was rejected.

However, the Decentralized Prosecutor's Office in Bariloche, headed by Attorney General Fernando Arrigo, told LA NACION that evidence is gathering to prove the crime of human trafficking for the purpose of aggravated exploitation (because the victim was pregnant, because more than three people participated in the commission of the crime, and because the exploitation of the victim was consummated)."

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