...As part of Parents Weekend, the USC Department of Sociology presented "Sects in the City: Protecting Your Children from Cults" ...with the aim of educating parents about how to help their children avoid cult recruitment techniques.

"Cults are known to recruit on college campuses," said the presenter, Doni Whitsett, a professor in the School of Social Work and an independent clinician...

...groups on and around USC's campus - including the LaRouche movement ... have been accused of cult activity in the past...

• Read Comments On Article Above, Daily Trojan

---

• October 18, 2007 Cult Article Unfairly Targets Los Angeles Church of Christ, Letter to the Editor, Daily Trojan, University of Southern California

  Rabbi Susan Laemmle Dean of Religious Life

  Revd. Elizabeth Davenport Senior Associate Dean of Religious Life

  ...If it comes to the notice of the Office of Religious Life that a group has violated the terms of the Ethical Framework, prompt action is taken to rectify the situation, and if any students feel that a religious group is making unreasonable demands on them, the deans of Religious Life strongly encourage them to come and talk about it.

A 58-year-old Leesburg man whose death due to a fall from the Waxpool overpass onto a busy Route 28 corridor in Loudoun County last week was ruled a suicide by authorities has been identified as a long-time associate of political extremist Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr...

...The "morning briefing" is considered authoritative within all the LaRouche entities that many, including many former participants, contend operate collectively like a cult. The April 11 version, written by Tony Papert of LaRouche's inner leadership circle, his National Executive Committee, appears to assert that the only way the "baby boom" generation, ostensibly including those among LaRouche's own associates, can be in the "real world" is through suicide...

A British student who died in Germany where he had attended a conference by a right-wing group was beaten to death, according to new evidence...

...Mr Duggan was in Germany for an anti-war conference run by the Schiller Institute, a right-wing group inspired by US political activist Lyndon LaRouche...

Members of the LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM) whisked Ed Capps and his friend, Katrina Fenton, away to their headquarters in Redford near the end of winter semester 2006. They were returned only after a six-hour indoctrination to get them to drop out of school and join their cause...

...The LaRouche members emphatically denied being a cult...

...the group alternates between days recruiting at Eastern Michigan University, Wayne State University and University of Michigan. There was a discussion that LaRouche's politics are the only way to save the world...

...Capps didn't give the LaRouche group his phone number. However, Fenton did...She received about 20 phone calls last month urging her to come back...

...Chip Berlet, journalist and LaRouche researcher, believes that the main targets for LYM recruits are college campuses...

...Phil Fisher, a charismatic local organizer for the LYM, was told he could not give any official comments on the group. When asked basic questions like, "What are the group's goals?" and "Why campaign so heavily on campuses?" he had no answers. Instead, the group released an advanced copy of a pamphlet against campus media, with sensationalist subheadings...

A look at the LaRouche Youth Movement and the enigmatic man behind the scenes

...They are often the supporters of a man named Lyndon LaRouche, and despite their presence at Boston University and on other college campuses as part of the LaRouche Youth Movement, many students remain unaware of who LaRouche is and what he stands for.

His supporters describe him as a visionary leader whose movement seeks to liberate minds from the oppressive constraints of society. Much of LaRouche's current literature fiercely opposes the Bush administration.

His opponents denounce him as a cult leader and conspiracy theorist with strongly anti-Semitic tendencies...

...Steve Hassan, director of the Somerville-based Freedom of Mind Center, said he thinks the movement is a cult because it is an "authoritarian, pyramid-structure group, with a charismatic figure at the top who has all the answers [and] dictatorial control."

Hassan said the LaRouche movement follows what he calls the "BITE" model of mind control, standing for behavior, information, thought and emotion...

...A German coroner recorded a verdict of suicide after Jeremiah Duggan, 22, was hit by two cars in Wiesbaden, in 2003.

But this was rejected by a British coroner who concluded Mr Duggan was in "a state of terror" when he died.

His mother Erica, of Golders Green, north London, says new evidence suggests her son was killed elsewhere and then "placed" at the scene.

Mr Duggan had gone to Germany for a Schiller Institute meeting, a right-wing group inspired by American political activist Lyndon LaRouche...

Forensic probe casts more doubt on the suicide verdict of young Briton in Germany

Dramatic new evidence has cast doubt on the official account of the mysterious death of a British student who had become involved with a right-wing political cult in Germany.

A detailed investigation by a former Scotland Yard forensic expert into the death of Jeremiah Duggan, obtained by The Observer, contradicts the verdict by German authorities that the 22-year-old committed suicide by leaping in front of cars on a dual carriageway in Wiesbaden, on the Rhine in west Germany....

...In the days before his death, the gifted student from Golders Green, north-west London, had become involved with the Wiesbaden-based followers of Lyndon LaRouche, an American millionaire with virulent anti-Semitic views. An internal Scotland Yard report describes the German group as possessing 'sinister [and] dangerous connections'...

...college officials say they view most of these groups as high-pressure organizations akin to cults. The groups have a history of recruiting vulnerable students and then alienating them from their parents and classmates. They say that the groups, many of which were banned from schools more than a decade ago, resurfaced on campuses this year...

...The Boston Church of Christ, which was founded in Lexington in 1979, and the LaRouche Youth Movement, a political group founded by former presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche, are the two groups appearing most often on local campuses, officials said...

The groups are considered high-pressure organizations because they have been accused of using strong-arm tactics to recruit and keep members...

...after a re-investigation into his death was refused.

The German authorities maintained that 22-year-old Jeremiah Duggan, from Golders Green, committed suicide. But his mother, Erica Duggan, believes he died in suspicious circumstances.

The mother of a Jewish student from Golders Green who died under mysterious circumstances two years ago is considering taking her case to the European Court of Human Rights, after the German authorities closed down the investigation into her son's death.

Jeremiah Duggan, 22, was run over by three cars on a motorway in Wiesbaden, Germany, on March 27, 2002, three days after attending a meeting of the far-right LaRouche Youth Movement.

He had run out into the road in what was apparently a panicked state one hour after phoning his mother, Erica, of Dunstan Road, to tell her that he was in deep trouble'.

But despite claims from Mrs Duggan that her son had been subjected to psychological terror', the public prosecutor in Wiesbaden, Hannelore Biniok, has refused calls for a full investigation into her son's death.

Mrs Duggan plans to appeal the decision in the European Court of Human Rights unless a dramatic U-turn is made...

...Reeves, a representative for the LaRouche Movement, was kicked off the campus by University Police last April after he ventured outside his designated area where he was distributing pamphlets. Titus ruled Reeves had been directly "injured" by the university's speech-zone policy and has the right to sue the university...)

In the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, there is one candidate that has been flying under the radar of most mainstream press, although supporters of Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., who is making his...bid for the presidency, have made a strong presence around Portland State lately...

...On the other hand, many dismiss LaRouche as nothing more than an eccentric conspiracy theororist, and some critics believe that he and his followers are in a political cult promoting fascist and anti-Semitic ideology...)

...Mr Duggan went to Germany for a Schiller Institute meeting - his family say the group is a "political cult"...

...The institute is led by Lyndon LaRouche, an American right-wing conspiracy theorist...)

Today marks the first anniversary of the death of Jeremiah Duggan, 22, who died after being struck by traffic when he stumbled on to a road near Wiesbaden in Germany. He had been attending a meeting organised by followers of Lyndon LaRouche, an American economist and a Democratic presidential candidate who some have accused of running a dangerous cult�)

...Jeremiah Duggan, who was 22, died last March after being hit by two cars on a dual carriageway near Wiesbaden.

Police concluded it was suicide, but the family believes he was murdered...

...He had been attending an anti-war conference in Wiesbaden run by the Schiller Institute.

The institute is led by Lyndon LaRouche, an American right-wing conspiracy theorist...)

Jeremiah - or Jerry - Duggan died last March after jumping into traffic in Wiesbaden, south of Frankfurt...

...The 22 year old was studying for two degrees in Paris, at the Sorbonne and British Institute...

... Jerry Duggan ended up in Germany after being invited to what he thought was an anti-war conference, at a time when passions were running high about Iraq...

...The conference, near Wiesbaden, was being run by the Schiller Institute, a group inspired by Lyndon LaRouche and run by his wife...)

...For several hours each day, the 30 college-aged youths file into a nondescript business suite in Downtown Oakland to discuss the coming collapse of the world�s financial system and the one man who they believe can save it.

That man is eight-time presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche.

Mostly in their late teens or early 20s...

...They table on Sproul Plaza almost daily, but most have dropped out of school�some even severing contact with friends and family�all to spread the message of a man they have never met...

...Members travel to dozens of college campuses aggressively recruiting members and not hesitating to ask newcomers to quit school...

...As a non-student organization, the LaRouche members are prohibited from tabling on campus, but the group still comes on weekdays and weekends, eager to recruit new members...

Police said the group recruited students aged 18 to 24 years and used mental manipulation to get them to abandon their studies and promote charismatic American leader Lyndon LaRoche to be the next US president...)

Erica Duggan pledged to continue her campaign after a coroner noted that her son Jeremiah, 22, had been in "a state of terror" before his death...

...Mrs Duggan told Dr Dolman that her research showed the Schiller Institute was linked to Lyndon LaRouche, who had been an American presidential candidate...)

According to Lopez, the LaRouche supporters have received permission from McNutt, director of public affairs, to be on campus each morning...

...2001 issue of the Pasadena City College Courier, PCC Chief of Campus Police Philip Mullendore complained of constant phone calls inviting students to meetings. Many who did attend the meetings soon dropped out of school to promote LaRouche's ideas full time...)

The 80-year-old economist has raised more than $3.7 million over the past few years, much of it through small donations and the Internet. Supporters handed out fliers at Washington subway stations this week proclaiming him the leader among Democratic hopefuls in the number of individual donations...) (Photo included.)

...Rebecca Thomas is 29 years old. She's been working for the LaRouche campaign out of Baltimore for the past nine years, and her job on Tuesday was to call as many college newspapers as she could find and invite interested reporters to a conference call...

...LaRouche doesn't mince words. A reporter from Ohio State asked him why he thought he could win in 2004 after so many unsuccessful attempts.

"I was always right," he replied...)

...LaRouche volunteers also regularly campaign at other local schools, including Towson University, Howard University, George Washington University and Prince George's Community College...

...Daria Cleinman, a senior studio art and graphic design major, has campaigned for the unorthodox Democrat since the fall. Her colleague Maria Channon left the university after one year for a full-time campaign job and a small weekly stipend. The money, she said, is not her focus -- her focus is helping the world avoid a "clash of civilizations."...

...Channon said the intention of the campus presence is to recruit people to join the movement, but not in a forceful way.

"It's not like we say you have to join or you are immoral swine," she said. "People can throw out all the words they want, but they can't dispute that we're out here trying to make a difference.")

...Philip Mullendore, chief of campus police, reported that they get complaints on regular basis from students about La Rouche recruits harassing them in the quad...

(Profanity included.)

LaRouche, a four-time presidential candidate who has promoted his controversial ideas internationally for almost 20 years, was also convicted of conspiring to hide his personal income since 1979, the last year he filed a federal tax return...)