Regarding the former US State Department warning, Kevin Shepherd said:
“The US State Department has been more sober than Indian politicians, issuing a travel warning after reports of ‘inappropriate sexual behaviour by a prominent local religious leader.’ That statement has been confirmed by officials as a reference to Sathya Sai Baba.”
Kevin Shepherd obviously does not care to update his website with current and accurate information. Since July 17th 2007, the US State Department has “soberly” removed all indirect references to Sathya Sai Baba from their official website (Refs: Truth Behind US State Department Warning - Official US State Consular Sheet).
It is very disturbing that Kevin Shepherd (like ex-devotees) misrepresented the former US State Department warning when he purposely left out the pivotal word “unconfirmed” in his quote. The former US State Department warning explicitly stated “unconfirmed reports of inappropriate sexual behavior by a prominent local religious leader”. Kevin Shepherd (wholly unconcerned with giving full and accurate citations) quoted only partial information that significantly changed the entire context to the original statement. Why would a serious researcher cite partial quotes for any other reason than personal bias and deceit?
In his July 2007 update, Kevin Shepherd said (in reference to UNESCO and the US State Department removing all indirect warnings against Sai Baba from their websites):
“This grave cessation of public warnings should arouse strong questions about official protocol, which can evidently be manipulated by an organisation whose activities have not been duly investigated.”
Actually, these “grave cessation of public warnings” should arouse strong suspicions that the former warnings were discovered to be based on inadequate or deceptive information. After all, Ex-Devotees boasted how they accomplished the Unesco Withdrawal and the US State Department Warning via an unremitting “e-bombing” campaign.
Kevin Shepherd went from calling the US State Department “sober” to implying that they were manipulated by the Sai Organization. This type of behavior is highly indicative of a conspiracy theorist that operates on the premise of paranoia and deceit when the truth does not argue in his favor.
The reason why Sathya Sai Baba and the Sai Organization have never been “investigated” is because all of the alleged victims have never followed the process of law and refuse (to this day) to file a basic police complaint against the guru in India. Therefore, the perception that Sathya Sai Baba is completely innocent of all wrongdoing is due to the apathy and non-credibility of alleged victims (who refused the offer of free “world-class legal resources” from Ex-Devotees). Don’t expect Kevin Shepherd to provide these facts, which he could have easily obtained had he contacted Joe Moreno (a Pro-Sai Activist he has written extensively against).
