A psychologist who specialises in cult groups has provided a fresh insight into the sovereign citizen belief system, after a member of the dangerous ideological sect allegedly shot and killed two police officers in rural Victoria.
The manhunt for Dezi Freeman who is accused of shooting two police officers dead has entered its fifth day, with authorities battling brutal alpine weather as they comb Victoria’s rugged high country.
Freeman has displayed a long pattern of anti-government sentiments and had a history of association with pseudolaw and the sovereign citizen movement, previously describing police as “terrorist thugs” and “frigging Nazis”.
Psychologist Maria Esguerra who is a survivor of the cult known as the Children of God said labelling fringe groups was not “helpful” and stated it was more productive to understand the processes behind indoctrination.
“A lot of people who join cults, they feel incredibly embarrassed, and you don't have to be a fool to be fooled, you know they come to me with an incredible amount of moral injury for the things they did,” Ms Esguerra told Sky News host Jaynie Seal.
Ms Esguerra said the sovereign citizen belief system was not centred upon “necessarily one leader” and that there was “quite a lot of influencers and leaders”.
“They are the ones that really have a lot of control over people and influencing them, setting up these systems of control, encouraging people to argue with the police and do all sort of criminal behaviour, systems of influence, which is always around emotions, so creating this fear,” Ms Esguerra explained.
The sovereign citizen movement is a loose group of anti-government activists, vexatious litigants and conspiracy theorists who pursue a pseudolegal ideological system that claims not to be subject to any government statutes unless explicitly consented to.
Certain proponents of the fringe ideology not only resent government rules but reject its legitimacy entirely with Freeman described as a “very active” member of the sovereign citizen movement who had been “held in high regard” by its followers.
Freeman, who was believed to be “heavily armed” at the time of the incident refused to provide police was a saliva sample in September 2020 when he was caught driving with a mobile phone and lodged a legal battle after a judge cancelled his licence and banned him from obtaining a one for two years.
Ms Esguerra reiterated there were two types of people within cults, that being the “perpetrators” who created and sold “legal products” and the victims who were “disadvantaged and disenfranchised”.
“If you're helping a loved one, you definitely can’t confront them with the facts and figures, because arguing in our cult was contentious, we call them systemites or people in the outside world, we called the police officers antichrist soldiers, so we had this us versus them mentality,” she said.
She advised that “asking big-open ended questions” could aid in giving vulnerable cult members wider perspective and that encouraging “their critical thinking skills was the most important thing”.
“Don't act smug or dismissive, you know our judicial oath is actually to do the right by all manner of people so for the victims who have been under this indoctrination it's important that that they do get the support that they need and treated with dignity.
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