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Kevin Stevenson: ‘Suing the Scientologists’ – The Phoenix, February 22nd 2013
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2013-02-22:2163779:BlogPost:23339
2013-02-22T01:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
<div class="moz-text-flowed" lang="x-western" xml:lang="x-western">A High Court case coming down the tracks promises to shed some light on the mysterious internal workings of the Church of Scientology in Ireland, which is being sued for €100,000 by a former member who is alleging 'fraud', 'undue influence', 'misrepresentation,' and 'infliction of emotional distress.' The Scientologists are contesting the allegations and are represented by Dublin solicitors, Noel Smyth & Partners.…<br></br></div>
<div class="moz-text-flowed" lang="x-western" xml:lang="x-western">A High Court case coming down the tracks promises to shed some light on the mysterious internal workings of the Church of Scientology in Ireland, which is being sued for €100,000 by a former member who is alleging 'fraud', 'undue influence', 'misrepresentation,' and 'infliction of emotional distress.' The Scientologists are contesting the allegations and are represented by Dublin solicitors, Noel Smyth & Partners.<br/> <br/>
The plaintiff, Kevin Stevenson, is a graphic designer originally from County Donegal, who lived in Dublin for a number of years and currently resides in Paris. Stevenson alleges that around 2004, he was offered a copy of the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, written by Scientology founder, L. Ron Hubbard and the following year, he attended the Irish headquarters of Scientology, on Dublin's Middle Abbey Street, for 'personality testing'.<br/>
<br/>
Stevenson claims to have been unduly influenced by the organisation to take out a new mortgage on his home with Start Mortgages to free up capital to pay for the auditing courses, including one referred to as the 'purification and objectives' course. (Auditing is a central practice in Scientology in which an interviewer asks the subject a series of questions designed to uncover subconscious memories.) He previously had a relatively small mortgage of his house and received on an annual salary of around €60,000 from the advertising agency he worked for.<br/>
<br/>
One of the Scientology staff allegedly moved into Stevenson's house for about a year, where he lived rent-free. By 2009, it is alleged, Stevenson was running out of cash and claims that the Scientologists (and its servants and agents), became increasingly aggressive in their demands for money, occasionally phoning him at work to seek payment. Stevenson later left the organisation, apparently with the help of his friends and then moved abroad.<br/>
<br/>
The latest accounts available for the company behind the Scientologists in Ireland — the Church of Scientology Mission of Dublin Ltd — showed that it had a deficit in members' funds of €685,000 at the end of April 2010. A note in the accounts said that this "deficit has been funded by members of the Church of Scientology worldwide and other Church of Scientology Missions."<br/>
<br/>
The company directors are listed as Gerard Ryan, an architect with an address in Finglas, D11, and Siobhan Ryan, who lives in Swords, Co Dublin. Two other senior members are Dublin-based chiropractors Gerard Collins and wife, Zabrina Collins. She is the daughter of the Donegal publican, Frank Shortt, who was framed by Gardai in the 1990s who falsely accused him of allowing the sale of drugs in his nightclub, for which he spent three years in jail.<br/>
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This is not the first time a former member of the Scientologists has taken the company to the Irish courts. In 2003, a case in which one Mary Johnston had alleged conspiracy, misrepresentation, breach of constitutional rights and infliction of emotional harm, was settled on undisclosed terms.</div>
"Belgium to bring fraud charges against Scientologists" - Irish Independent, December 29th 2012
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2012-12-29:2163779:BlogPost:23409
2012-12-29T01:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
<p>BELGIAN federal prosecutors are preparing to bring charges, including fraud and extortion, against the Church of Scientology as a "criminal organisation", according to press reports.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Charges of fraud, illegal medicine, breaches of privacy and extortion have been drawn up against the church and two senior executives, 'De Tijd', Belgium's financial newspaper, has reported.</p>
<p></p>
<p>"The subpoenas have only just been sent to the Scientologists," the newspaper…</p>
<p>BELGIAN federal prosecutors are preparing to bring charges, including fraud and extortion, against the Church of Scientology as a "criminal organisation", according to press reports.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Charges of fraud, illegal medicine, breaches of privacy and extortion have been drawn up against the church and two senior executives, 'De Tijd', Belgium's financial newspaper, has reported.</p>
<p></p>
<p>"The subpoenas have only just been sent to the Scientologists," the newspaper reported.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The charges are said to relate to employment contracts issued to recruit volunteers and members in breach of Belgium's strict employment laws.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Prosecutors are investigating claims of extortion of members, the illegal use of "pseudo-medicine" and the keeping of records that contravene privacy laws.</p>
<p></p>
<p>A spokesman for the church's Brussels headquarters said: "Unfortunately, we have not received anything from the prosecutor's office yet. The media have been informed, we have not."</p>
<p></p>
<p>Scientology's rejection of many medical practices and its psychological "auditing" techniques of recruits, including the taking of personal records, have long been controversial. In February this year, a French appeals court upheld fraud charges and a €600,000 fine against the Church of Scientology in France for talking its recruits into paying large sums for bogus personality tests and cures.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The movement, which has actor Tom Cruise as its figurehead, has been under investigation in Belgium for 15 years without any charges being brought against the organisation, which is viewed as a cult in many European countries.</p>
<p></p>
<p>While Scientology is regarded as a religion in the United States, Italy and Spain, it is not recognised as a church in other European countries such as France, Germany, Belgium and Britain.</p>
<p></p>
<p><a href="http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/belgium-to-bring-fraud-charges-against-scientologists-3338253.html" target="_blank">http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/belgium-to-bring-fraud-charges-against-scientologists-3338253.html</a></p>
“Anti-Scientology campaigners fear harassment” – The Sunday Times (Ireland), May 13th 2012
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2012-05-13:2163779:BlogPost:21972
2012-05-13T00:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
<p>FORMER members of the Church of Scientology will hold a conference in Dublin next month to highlight the impact the movement has on followers.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The organiser is Pete Griffiths, a former director of an English Scientology mission, who says he has informed police at Dublin airport Scientologists may stage protests there against speakers arriving for the event.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Mike Rinder, a former chief spokesman for Scientology, claims when he came to Ireland in October he was…</p>
<p>FORMER members of the Church of Scientology will hold a conference in Dublin next month to highlight the impact the movement has on followers.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The organiser is Pete Griffiths, a former director of an English Scientology mission, who says he has informed police at Dublin airport Scientologists may stage protests there against speakers arriving for the event.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Mike Rinder, a former chief spokesman for Scientology, claims when he came to Ireland in October he was confronted at the airport by seven Scientologists shouting “You are not welcome in Ireland”.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The movement’s followers also protested at TV3′s studios, where Rinder was giving an interview, in which he claimed the Church of Scientology took money from followers by getting them to sign up to “life improvement” courses, mentally abused them, and controlled their emotions and behaviour. Rinder, who left in 2007, has admitted he intimidated and sought to discredit critics of the movement when he was in the church.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Griffiths now takes part in regular protests by Anonymous outside the church’s Dublin’s mission and credits the online activists for enabling defectors to join forces online. He had a “penny-drop-ping moment” when he checked out Scientology online in 2008 and now offers support to others who renounce the movement.</p>
<p></p>
<p>“We’re hoping that by raising public awareness, some people who have been in Scientology for a long time will start to question what they are doing,” Griffiths said. “It is brainwashing. The people who join are so keen and enthusiastic and well-meaning, but they control your emotions and rip you off by getting you to work for nothing and devote all of your time to it.”</p>
<p></p>
<p>Gerard Ryan, director of Scientology’s Dublin mission, said; “Our members do their best to ignore them, but their presence is intimidating. This little band has made clear it is their intention to harass and upset our members.</p>
<p></p>
<p>“Anonymous ‘hactivists’ are well publicised for their criminal activities the world over, including several arrests here in Ireland for hacking into the police, Fine Gael and others. Hardly a reputable source of information on the Church of Scientology”.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Speakers at the conference will include Tory Christman, a former ordained minister in Scientology, who worked at one of its celebrity centres. He once complained to MTV about A South Park parody that satirised actor John Travolta, a prominent church member. Tom Cruise and Peaches Geldof are among its other devotees.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Ryan dismissed the conference as “a handful of ex-members who have not been around for years”.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/4327/sundaytimes2.png"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/ONerfl.jpg"/></a></p>
"Court upholds Scientology fraud ruling in France" - The Irish Times, February 3rd 2012
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2012-02-03:2163779:BlogPost:22115
2012-02-03T01:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
<p>A FRENCH appeals court has upheld fraud charges and a €600,000 fine against the Church of Scientology for cajoling followers into paying large sums for bogus personality tests and cures.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Rejecting the church’s appeal against a 2009 ruling, the court said two French branches of the US-based organisation were guilty of “organised fraud” and gave four of its leaders suspended jail sentences of up to two years.</p>
<p></p>
<p>A French parliamentary committee described Scientology…</p>
<p>A FRENCH appeals court has upheld fraud charges and a €600,000 fine against the Church of Scientology for cajoling followers into paying large sums for bogus personality tests and cures.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Rejecting the church’s appeal against a 2009 ruling, the court said two French branches of the US-based organisation were guilty of “organised fraud” and gave four of its leaders suspended jail sentences of up to two years.</p>
<p></p>
<p>A French parliamentary committee described Scientology in 1995 as a “dangerous cult”, not a religion, and individual Scientologists had been prosecuted before, but this case marked the first time the organisation as a whole was convicted.</p>
<p></p>
<p>There had been expectations the French courts might ban the group, but legislation passed just before the original trial in May 2009 ruled that out.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The latest ruling found Scientology’s “celebrity centre” and its bookshop in Paris had taken advantage of vulnerable individuals in the 1990s. A personality test offered to followers had “no scientific value” and expensive treatments recommended on foot of negative results were purely a source of revenue.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The five plaintiffs in the case had accused the group of persuading them to spend tens of thousands of euro on the personality tests, vitamin cures, sauna sessions and “purification packs”.</p>
<p></p>
<p>“This is very good news for those who fight against cults and it is a serious defeat for the Church of Scientology,” said Olivier Morice, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Mr Morice said that while Scientology could still operate in France, the court’s ruling went to the heart of its activities and opened the door to a ban or dissolution as a possible outcome in other pending lawsuits.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Prosecutors had originally hoped the 2009 trial would lead to a ban in France. However, a change in French law that was approved shortly before a verdict briefly made it impossible to ban or dissolve a group convicted of fraud.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The law has since been changed back, but a ban on the group or its dissolution cannot be enforced retroactively.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Commenting yesterday, the church called the ruling “illegal” and said it would seek to have it overturned through a final appeal to the Cour de Cassation, France’s highest court, which can assess whether the law was applied correctly but not re-examine evidence.</p>
<p></p>
<p>“The church wishes that the fairness of justice, such as protected by our constitution, becomes a reality once again for all the citizens of our country, scientologists included,” a statement said.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The accused and their lawyers were not in court for yesterday’s verdict, but a few dozen scientologists protested outside the court with signs that read “I have the right to my religion”. In 1997 and 1999, French courts convicted Scientology members of fraud, while a court fined the church for violating privacy laws in 2002.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Founded in 1954 by science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard, the church bases its beliefs on the study of his 1950 book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0203/1224311175786.html" target="_blank">www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0203/1224311175786.html</a></p>
"Irish Church of Scientology revenues drop by 60%" - The Irish Times, August 2nd 2011
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2011-08-02:2163779:BlogPost:15705
2011-08-02T00:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
<p>REVENUES HAVE plummeted at the Irish branch of the controversial Church of Scientology, which remains deep in the red.<br></br> Membership of the worldwide church, established in 1954, includes movie stars such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta.<br></br> However, documents show that interest-free loans from abroad are propping up the Irish branch, which is more than €688,000 in the red in its latest accounts.<br></br>
<br></br>
According to financial documents lodged by the Church of Scientology Mission of…</p>
<p>REVENUES HAVE plummeted at the Irish branch of the controversial Church of Scientology, which remains deep in the red.<br/> Membership of the worldwide church, established in 1954, includes movie stars such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta.<br/>
However, documents show that interest-free loans from abroad are propping up the Irish branch, which is more than €688,000 in the red in its latest accounts.<br/>
<br/>
According to financial documents lodged by the Church of Scientology Mission of Dublin Ltd, the company’s revenues more than halved from €484,070 to €193,509 in 2009.<br/>
<br/>
As a result of this 60 per cent drop, the church’s operating surplus fell 74 per cent, from €271,804 to €68,292.<br/>
<br/>
The accounts are for the 12-month period to the end of April 2009, but were only signed off by the board on July 20th last after a long delay by the company in lodging the return.<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0802/1224301719186.html" target="_blank">http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0802/1224301719186.html</a></p>
"Scientology's Dublin branch is on verge of being struck off" - The Mail on Sunday, June 26th 2011
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2011-06-26:2163779:BlogPost:16605
2011-06-26T00:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
THE Church of Scientology in Dublin could be struck off for failing to file company accounts, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.<br></br><br></br>
The Irish office has failed to file accounts for 2009, which were due in January 2010. Last year's accounts are now also late and a strike-off notice was sent to the church's directors on June 3. If accounts are not filed within two months, the church's assets will be transferred to the State.<br></br>
<br></br>
The move would be highly embarrassing for the…
THE Church of Scientology in Dublin could be struck off for failing to file company accounts, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.<br/><br/>
The Irish office has failed to file accounts for 2009, which were due in January 2010. Last year's accounts are now also late and a strike-off notice was sent to the church's directors on June 3. If accounts are not filed within two months, the church's assets will be transferred to the State.<br/>
<br/>
The move would be highly embarrassing for the controversial organisation, which counts celebrities such as Tom Cruise as members.<br/>
<br/>
The organisation still appears to be reeling from …<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-259781310.html">http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-259781310.html</a>
"The Appliance of Science" - Irish Sunday Mirror, March 20th 2011
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2011-03-20:2163779:BlogPost:16408
2011-03-20T01:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
<p>SCIENTOLOGY bosses are trying to brainwash vulnerable people to get at their cash, an undercover Irish Sunday Mirror investigation reveals today.<br></br><br></br>We went behind the scenes at the secretive religion's four-hour long Personal Efficiency Course last week.<br></br><br></br>Our aim was to discover just what goes on inside what experts call the biggest cult in the world.<br></br><br></br>And our findings weren't pretty. Our reporter was told he was depressed, nervous, and unstable, and warned the only…</p>
<p>SCIENTOLOGY bosses are trying to brainwash vulnerable people to get at their cash, an undercover Irish Sunday Mirror investigation reveals today.<br/><br/>We went behind the scenes at the secretive religion's four-hour long Personal Efficiency Course last week.<br/><br/>Our aim was to discover just what goes on inside what experts call the biggest cult in the world.<br/><br/>And our findings weren't pretty. Our reporter was told he was depressed, nervous, and unstable, and warned the only way to fix his life was by signing up for a further course of treatment - at a price, of course.<br/><br/>Then, when he tried to leave the Dublin headquarters, cult leaders blocked him for half an hour, and tried to force him to sign up for more courses he didn't want or need.<br/><br/>This is the true, ugly face of the fastest growing religion in the world.<br/><br/>Nothing divides people's opinion as much as Scientology.<br/><br/>A-list celebrity fans - and there are a lot of them - claim it's the only way to personal happiness and success in life.<br/><br/>Detractors - and there are plenty of them, too - insist it is nothing more than a cult, sucking in the vulnerable, bleeding them dry, and tearing families apart.<br/><br/>We decided to find out for ourselves.<br/><br/>The headquarters of the Irish Scientology movement, in Dublin's city centre, looks perfectly normal from the outside.<br/><br/>This is Samuel Hamilton's report: I signed up for the four-hour Personal Efficiency course to see what really goes on behind closed doors.<br/><br/>After first completing a personality test the week before, I sat down with the two other people who turned up to hear just who we really are.<br/><br/>Pony-tailed Victor, my teacher, from Hungary, wasted no time in telling me I am abnormal.<br/><br/>Victor took my 200 question personality test from a folder and attempted to explain it - pointing out that of the ten elements he tested me for, only one barely registered as normal.<br/><br/>He told me I was "depressed", "nervous" and "irresponsible," with serious character flaws that need immediate fixing before it's too late.<br/><br/>Victor warned: "The test indicates you are extremely unstable in character, your memory is bad, and you cannot concentrate on things at hand, or your attendance is always fixed compulsively on something." Not nice to hear, and I'm sure words that would strike right to the heart of anyone feeling vulnerable.<br/><br/>During the course - which has attracted a number of complaints after being advertised on buses across Dublin - my fellow listeners and I were bombarded with barmy Scientology principles and told: Only by following the teachings of Scientology could we have any chance of leading a happy, fulfilled life or maintaining meaningful relationships.<br/><br/>It's often better to stay in an unhappy marriage for the sake of children, animals and nature - leaving your partner will have a terrible effect on everyone else.<br/><br/>Marriages only ever fail because of a lack of communication.<br/><br/>Scientology would "raise our intelligence" and ensure we move up in the world Money means nothing to Scientology - despite refusing to let me leave for more than half an hour after the course as I was pestered to sign up for my second programme, despite repeatedly saying I didn't want to continue.<br/><br/>After arriving at the offices, Victor made the three of us watch 8 short videos, which we were told provided an insight into the principles of Scientology.<br/><br/>Following the videos, we were then asked to discuss as a group situations from our own lives that could be adapted to the principles of Scientology - the favourite of celebrities including Tom Cruise and his wife Katie Holmes.<br/><br/>None of this was particularly groundbreaking.<br/><br/>A lot revolved around tired concepts I'd heard a million times before, like the idea that going for a walk could be good for you. Next I was taken into Victor's office again to see the results of my personality test - but not before he pointed out the electronic machine used in Scientology counselling sessions.<br/><br/>He asked me to grip tightly on the two metal tubes attached to the e-meter by wires, as he played around with the dials on the front of the machine.<br/><br/>He then told me to think about a time in my life when I was stressed, before the machine's needles jumped to the right.<br/><br/>Victor swore the e-meter was a completely scientific way of discovering exactly what was wrong in peoples' lives - despite critics calling the machine a fraud and courts blasting claims made by Scientology about the technology.<br/><br/>He added: "The auditors who are using this meter, they are in training for two years for how to use it and the specific questions to ask. They can handle anything." After going through my personality test Victor told me that in order to have any chance of fixing my life, I needed to immediately sign up for a new Scientology course.<br/><br/>He then began to pressure me to continue with Scientology.<br/><br/>He told me: "I would recommend doing the Ups and Downs course... almost everyone who is here has done it, because it is such a basic. It gives you the reason why someone is rollercoastering in life. Why it happens that sometimes you feel good and other days you just feel down. We have a great success from doing these courses because what they do, it's really just shows you the tools that you can use to make your life better. You will find them in the course, then you can see if it's for yourself.<br/><br/>"Why don't you start on this course? We can get you rolling and then you can arrange a time with the course supervisor. "These are not long courses. It depends how quick you are, but it shouldn't take more than two weeks, I would say. It also depends how much time you put in.<br/><br/>"It's only EUR50 together - EUR15 for the material and EUR35 for the course, which is nothing, for the data that you are getting. So do you want to pay with card or cash?" Victor continued his hard sell even when I repeatedly asked to put off paying for the course.<br/><br/>He said: "If you have money on your card, we can get your rolling right now, because the course supervisor could schedule you or you could schedule yourself because there are quite a number of people in the course room now.<br/><br/>"And the other reason I would recommend it, is because once you've started it, you kind of force yourself to do it.<br/><br/>"But if you put it in the future - I have some experience with this - many people say, 'Maybe next week', my suggestion would be, if you want to do it, just go for it.<br/><br/>"Because once you start thinking about it - I know this because for many people, things just come up in life."<br/><br/>My verdict? It's very difficult to continue saying no to someone who has you cornered.<br/><br/>For anyone out there feeling generally vulnerable, being told they are unstable and heading for a crash could be devastating - just as being told they can be fixed, for a price, could seem a dream come true.<br/><br/>The problem with scientology, as your cash slowly vanishes, is that the dream could become a nightmare.<br/><br/>WHAT IT'S BASED UPON<br/><br/>SCIENTOLOGY is based upon the idea that we are all constantly being pestered by invisible aliens.<br/><br/>People who lead the religion at highranking levels teach that Xenu was an alien who headed the Galactic Federation, an organisation of 76 planets - including Earth.<br/><br/>And when the planets were faced with an over-population crisis more than 75,000,000 years ago, he decided a huge culling of people was required.<br/><br/>The citizens were, it is claimed, gathered in large groups and killed before their souls - or, as the religion calls them, thetans - were frozen.<br/><br/>These were then shipped to Earth, then known as Teegeeack, and left close to volcanoes that were later destroyed in a series of high-powered nuclear explosions.<br/><br/>Scientology teaches that we all have our own thetan - and attached to these are destructive engrams, the leftover destructed souls from the mass killings.<br/><br/>And they say that only through paid counselling sessions can these destructive engrams be removed, until a State of Calm is achieved.<br/><br/>At this point, the so-called religion says people's thetans can achieve their full potential - and even work alone outside of a physical body.<br/><br/>Scientology also claims that they will make you look physically younger.<br/><br/>In material given at the Personal Efficiency Course they state: "By the most exact tests known, it has been proven that Scientology can greatly increase intelligence in an individual.<br/><br/>"And Scientology can do other things. It can reduce reaction time and it can pull the year's off one's appearance... it is a science of life and it works. It adequately handles the basic rules of life and it brings order into chaos."</p>
<p> </p>
<div>Samuel Hamilton, March 20th, 2011</div>
<div><a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20110320/ai_n57113223/">http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20110320/ai_n57113223/</a></div>
"Scientology: Inside and Out" - The Irish Times, March 19th 2011
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2011-03-19:2163779:BlogPost:12311
2011-03-19T01:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
A recent campaign in Dublin advertised courses run by the Scientology movement. Members past and present tell Cian Traynor about their experiences of the organisation. Does it bring the promised prosperity, intelligence and freedom, or simply exploit the vulnerable?<br></br>
<br></br>
‘When job security turns into insecurity,” ran a recent ad on the Dart, in Dublin, “attend a course in Scientology.” The accompanying photographs feature men and women looking stressed or dejected. The course advertised…
A recent campaign in Dublin advertised courses run by the Scientology movement. Members past and present tell Cian Traynor about their experiences of the organisation. Does it bring the promised prosperity, intelligence and freedom, or simply exploit the vulnerable?<br/>
<br/>
‘When job security turns into insecurity,” ran a recent ad on the Dart, in Dublin, “attend a course in Scientology.” The accompanying photographs feature men and women looking stressed or dejected. The course advertised was in “personal efficiency”, cost €45 and promised to “increase ability, competence and lasting security at work”.<br/>
<br/>
When the posters appeared, complaints and defamatory graffiti materialised swiftly. The back-and-forth arguments about Scientology are constant: one side claims they are exposing the truth; the other dismisses the detractors as liars engaging in discriminatory behaviour.<br/>
<br/>
Since forming, in 1953, Scientology has presented itself as an applied religious philosophy that can bring prosperity, enhanced intelligence and spiritual freedom. The church’s founder, the late science-fiction writer L Ron Hubbard, taught that people are immortal beings who have forgotten their true nature.<br/>
<br/>
Through a method of regressive therapy known as auditing, practitioners aim to “clear” themselves of traumatic memories known as “engrams”, which are carried over from past lives and cause insecurities, irrational fears and psychosomatic illnesses.<br/>
<br/>
Scientology’s critics, however, see it as a money-making enterprise that exploits the vulnerable with cult-like practices.<br/>
<br/>
This weekend Scientology’s UK headquarters celebrates the centenary of Hubbard’s birth with a gala event where celebrity members such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta are expected – a measure of the religion’s progress as the world’s fastest-growing religion. Its opponents, meanwhile, will gather at Scientology missions around the world, buoyed by their belief the religion is struggling to survive in the face of mounting criticism from former members.<br/>
<br/>
Yet despite the fissure between celebrity endorsements and controversial allegations, Scientology still holds an appeal for people. We spoke to past and present practitioners to discover why they joined and why, in most cases, they left.<br/>
<br/>
<strong>John Duignan</strong><br/>
<br/><strong>
Commanding officer, Scientology Missions International UK</strong><br/>
<br/>
John Duignan’s 22 years as a Scientologist were bookended by mental breakdown. After emigrating from Cork he was stopped in Stuttgart one day in 1985 and persuaded to take a free personality test. The results indicated he desperately needed help, which he says was true. He had felt vulnerable since his parents killed themselves, when he was 10. Scientology seemed to offer a solution.<br/>
<br/>
“I’ve realised I had quite a messed-up childhood, which set me up for needing something like that,” Duignan says. “They were promising me fantastic things: to make you permanently happy and healthy. For a depressed person that can be quite appealing.”<br/>
<br/>
Duignan says he was encouraged to take out bank loans to pay for Scientology courses and disconnect from anyone critical of the religion. Then something in him snapped.<br/>
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“I was suicidal. I haven’t been able to document this, but I feel it was induced in some way. I came out of this breakdown as a fanatical Scientologist, and that’s a fact. A mental filter had been broken. My ethos and culture was based around my Irish Catholic upbringing, but that was completely undermined. I now believed Scientology was the only way to save the world.”<br/>
<br/>
He began working at the Stuttgart mission in exchange for course work and was later recruited to the Sea Organisation, Scientology’s fraternal religious order. Its 6,000 members, some of whom are children, sign billion-year commitment forms.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s a difficult organisation to leave,” says Duignan. “Everybody watches everybody. All the bases have a perimeter of some form, and they are locked, wired and under surveillance. If you wake up one night and think, My God, what am I doing? you cannot walk out of the building.”<br/>
<br/>
Working 16-hour days, 365 days a year, on Scientology operations in the US, the UK, Africa, Canada and Australia, Duignan ascended the ranks. “I had become a real honorary bastard.” The greater Duignan’s responsibilities, the more trust he earned in his free time. He’d sneak away whenever possible, doing independent voluntary work in deprived areas to see how Scientology translated to the outside world. It didn’t stand up, he believed.<br/>
<br/>
Duignan began to develop doubts, believing the Scientology community was insular and rife with double standards.<br/>
<br/>
The church discourages independent inquiry on the grounds that it hampers progress along the Bridge to Total Freedom, the religion’s ladder to enlightenment. Revelations are made progressively through courses, the cost of which can add up to more than €300,000.<br/>
<br/>
Many former Scientologists cite their first delinquent internet search as a jarring experience. Duignan began reading “earth-shattering” accounts of former members who had reached the top only to grow disillusioned, finding troubling discrepancies between Hubbard’s church biography and his medical and military records.<br/>
<br/>
At 42, Duignan felt he should have been married with children and a career. Instead he was “a ghost” with no money, no qualifications or transferrable skills, no state entitlements and no way of relating to “wogs” – non-Scientologists. He says he couldn’t simply walk away, or “blow”, in Scientology terminology. He had been on security operations to forcibly bring back defectors and knew what to expect. “I was on the run,” he says gently. “I realised that psychologically I was not going to be able to keep this up.”<br/>
<br/>
Although Scientologists were staked outside his family home, in Cork, Duignan managed to trick them into thinking he was in Birmingham and made it clear that any attempts to bring him back would be futile. Four years on he says intensive counselling and the ability to attend college as a mature student have helped him rebuild his life.<br/>
<br/>
“That was so crucial,” he says. “I was quite ignorant after 22 years; the whole world outside of Scientology was scary. Even if I don’t get a job after this I’ve still got a good education and a sense of hope.”<br/>
<br/><strong>
Mike Rinder</strong><br/>
<br/><strong>
Former chief spokesman for Scientology and head of its office of special affairs</strong><br/>
<br/>
Not long ago, when former members of Scientology spoke out it was Mike Rinder’s job to deny, discredit and neutralise their claims, a process known as “dead agenting”.<br/>
<br/>
In 2007 that role involved following the BBC reporter John Sweeney, who was then filming an edition of Panorama about the religion. Sweeney had been inquiring about allegations that Scientology’s ecclesiastical leader, David Miscavige, had physically assaulted people within the church. Although Rinder ensured the allegations were omitted from the programme, Miscavige believed he should have stopped the edition from airing. As punishment Rinder was told to report for ditch- digging duty at Scientology’s UK base, in Sussex.<br/>
<br/>
Instead he disappeared. “I literally walked out the door with my briefcase, which was all I had,” he says. “I got a deluge of messages on my BlackBerry. ‘Where are you? We need to talk. We need to talk.’ I just ignored them all. They didn’t know where to find me.”<br/>
<br/>
Rinder believed Scientology had strayed from the church he had known since the age of six, that it was being abused to make money and further the power of Miscavige, who succeeded Hubbard after the writer’s death, in 1986. Though Rinder still had faith in Scientology, he knew leaving would mean excommunication from his family, who remain in the church, and being automatically declared a “suppressive person”, an arcane Scientology term indicating an enemy of Scientology or someone who “opposes betterment activity”.<br/>
<br/>
Asked how he would compare his life before and after Scientology, Rinder goes silent. There’s a forced hiccup-like sound that slowly, unnervingly breaks into laughter. “That’s a leading question,” he says firmly.<br/>
<br/>
Rinder has spoken out only a handful of times since defecting from Scientology, where he specialised in handling journalists (who are not only “suppressive persons” but also “merchants of chaos”). After another pause he answers. “Night and day,” he says. “I went from incredible restrictions on what I could do, say and think to no outside restrictions.”<br/>
<br/>
He acknowledges that not everyone finds the adjustment easy. “I think probably the biggest difficulty people have is getting out of their minds the ingrained pattern of thinking about how to look at things,” he says. “They become infiltrated with this idea that you can’t criticise or do anything about what’s happening internally.”<br/>
<br/>
Now an independent Scientologist, Rinder says he was required to issue categorical denials in order to protect the name of Scientology. “The problem is that there is no other way you can seek to disprove something that’s true.” As a result, he says, deception and violence became the accepted ways of doing things within the church. “There are things I look back on that I am not proud of, and those sorts of things are some of them.”<br/>
<br/>
He does not regret being a Scientologist, however, and still swears by its teachings. But there is something he wouldn’t hesitate to say to other Scientologists, including his own family, given the opportunity: “Wake up and smell the coffee.”<br/>
<br/><a target="_blank" href="http://i.imgur.com/79f3b.jpg"><img class="align-full" src="http://i.imgur.com/79f3b.jpg"/></a><br/>
<br/>
<strong>Gabrielle Wynne</strong><br/>
<br/><strong>
Former staff member at the Scientology mission in Dublin</strong><br/>
<br/>
It started with a social-studies assignment for college. Gabrielle Wynne visited the Dublin Scientology mission, asked some questions and was intrigued enough to do some introductory courses at home. “I got a lot from them. I thought, It can only get better from here.”<br/>
<br/>
Within months Wynne was asked to join the staff. But there was a problem: her habit of contracting colds and flu was interpreted by her colleagues as a symptom of being “suppressed”. When asked if she was close to anyone who might disagree with Scientology, she admitted her mother had misgivings. Wynne was urged to disconnect from her mother, but she refused. Instead she was told to write her mother a letter, which was edited by the ethics officer, committing herself to the religion. “She just thought it was weird,” says Wynne. “Me and my mam can talk about anything. She knew that wouldn’t be me.”<br/>
<br/>
Learning and making friends at the mission were enough to make Wynne overlook what she now believes were warning signs, such as the day a colleague suggested she exploit a friend’s insecurities to bring her in for auditing. When she asked why they weren’t reaching out to homeless people, she says, the reply was, “Because they can’t afford it.”<br/>
<br/>
Sitting in a cafe, the bubbly 22-year-old says that she was promised a salary but that, in all her time of cleaning, cold-calling, auditing others and pushing flyers through letter boxes, there wasn’t one. “I was handed a little envelope with a €2 coin in it. I got my bus home that night and never got paid anything else.”<br/>
<br/>
Having already spent €3,000 on Scientology, Wynne needed to work full time elsewhere, but leaving the staff meant being billed for €1,000 in “freeloader debt”.<br/>
<br/>
After mounting pressure to join Sea Organisation, take out bank loans and disconnect from her mother, Wynne left last summer.<br/>
<br/>
She felt lied to. Initially they had assured her that people were never urged to disconnect from friends or family, that it was “black PR”. They had also repeatedly denied the existence of what Wynne refers to as “the Xenu thing”, part of a confidential scripture revealed at Operating Thetan III level that Hubbard described as a space opera. (Scientology postulates that it can be fatal if discovered prematurely.) Yet she had seen a YouTube video of the church’s current spokesperson confirming it.<br/>
<br/>
“There were so many witnesses and ex-members sharing things. I thought, They can’t all be lying. I was told they were all just suppressive people . . . It was never Scientology. It was always everyone else’s problem.”<br/>
<br/>
<strong>Pete Griffiths</strong><br/>
<br/><strong>
Anti-Scientology protestor</strong><br/>
<br/>
Before she began to have doubts Wynne would engage protestors in “friendly arguments”, trying to convince them they had it wrong. One of them was Pete Griffiths, a burly 57-year-old who offers support to former Scientologists. Sitting by Wynne’s side, he recalls his journey through Scientology with self-deprecating panache.<br/>
<br/>
Griffiths ran a mission in Cumbria, in northern England, until his weekly figures petered out. By the time he moved to Westport, in 1998, he planned to return to Scientology once his children were grown and he could better afford it. It wasn’t until he heard of a protest in 2008 that he looked into Scientology online and had a “penny-dropping moment”.<br/>
<br/>
“From 1987 to 2008 the thought control was all in place,” he says. “Then a lengthy unravelling process began. I got so angry that I burned any Scientology stuff I had lying around in a bonfire. I couldn’t look at it any more. The sense of betrayal is just incredible. The clues are all there, but you don’t see them.”<br/>
<br/>
Griffiths maintains, like everyone interviewed for this article, that Scientologists are generally good, well-intentioned people who can’t detect flaws with how Scientology is run. People can believe whatever they want, he says, but they should also feel free to criticise, research or articulate doubt. But nobody can be talked out of Scientology, he adds. “It has to come from them.”<br/>
<br/>
And so it was with Wynne, who now joins Griffiths and other former Scientologists on the other side of Abbey Street during monthly protests organised by the online activist group Anonymous, whose members the church regards as cyberterrorists.<br/>
<br/>
“The point of me protesting is to say, ‘Remember me?’ ” she says. “I’m not a bad person. I’m just asking, Why would you have to remortgage your house for a religion? Religion should be free.”<br/>
<br/><a target="_blank" href="http://i.imgur.com/13QkU.jpg"><img class="align-full" src="http://i.imgur.com/13QkU.jpg"/></a><br/>
<br/>
<strong>John McGhee</strong><br/>
<br/><strong>
Three years in Scientology</strong><br/>
<br/>
John McGhee says the stigma surrounding Scientology piqued his interest. If it delivered the self-betterment it promised, he reasoned, it seemed like a sound investment. “I walked in off the street and said, ‘Give me all you have.’ ”<br/>
<br/>
Hunched over a table in a quiet pub, his eyebrows framing an intense gaze, the 33-year-old embalmer spends 90 minutes detailing every course, price and promise of his time in Scientology. He barely contains his frustration at what he sees as pay-as-you-go revelations that lead nowhere. “They say if it’s not working it’s something you’re doing, and they put you in auditing for that at your expense.”<br/>
<br/>
McGhee admits there was an addictive quality to working up the “Bridge to Total Freedom”, the movement’s series of steps to enlightenment (see panel), so much so that he was prepared to ignore things he didn’t agree with. “At events or course completions they’d stand up and applaud Hubbard’s picture. I could never do it. Even as I went deeper into Scientology I never thought that was okay.”<br/>
<br/>
Part of the processing, McGhee says, included confessing “overts and withholds” – sins and secrets – which are kept on file, while using an electropsychometer. “The e-meter works like a crude lie detector. They can tell if you’re holding anything in, and they can get it out of you.”<br/>
<br/>
He recalls TRs, or training regimes, where he had to stare into someone’s eyes for four hours. “I went out of my head,” he says.<br/>
<br/>
Then there was an auditing session at which, he claims, a supervisor chastised McGhee’s friend for analysing traumatic childhood events in the presence of children. “Firstly, there shouldn’t have been kids there. But the disruption drove him into catatonia. From that night on he changed. We went into a session the next day and the next day, but he wasn’t coming out of it. They predicted he’d need four or five grand’s worth [of life repair]. That was an eye-opener. They wouldn’t fix that man. They left him in such a state because they wanted money first. He couldn’t afford it. He’s still in that state to this day.”<br/>
<br/>
McGhee lost interest at that point. By mid 2009 he had spent €10,500 and was researching Scientology every night in dismay. Recently he visited a friend who allegedly paid €50,000 for his bridge after just a day as a Scientologist, but there was nobody home. The neighbour said he’d packed up. McGhee looked up to the box room and saw the same Hubbard lectures that he had bought for €1,800 sitting on the shelf, and drew his own conclusion.<br/>
<br/>
Although he spent four nights and a day at the mission every week, he couldn’t relate to the dedication required to spend money he didn’t have. McGhee claims he regularly lent cash to senior members for food and was once accompanied to an ATM to prove he didn’t have more. He says the people around him were running up debts, losing their temper and falling ill – the opposite of what he was promised. But he couldn’t get anyone to see it that way, he says, and eventually stopped questioning it.<br/>
<br/>
“They honestly believe they’re on to a good thing and it’s more important than their children or mothers and fathers. They think they can clear the planet of ‘reactive minds’, but they can’t even do it in the mission. There are lads there 20 years without a penny to their name who glorify Scientology. And I think, What did it actually do for you?”<br/>
<br/><a target="_blank" href="http://i.imgur.com/opPua.jpg"><img class="align-full" src="http://i.imgur.com/opPua.jpg"/></a><br/>
<br/>
The Irish Scientology movement<br/>
<br/>
Gerard Ryan, spokesman for the Church of Scientology in Dublin, says the only way to measure Scientology’s effectiveness is through a fundamental tenet of L Ron Hubbard, its founder: what’s true for you is what you observe to be true.<br/>
<br/>
If you’re not seeing a return on something you’re putting time and effort into, he says, of course you’re not going to continue with it. His wife, for example, tried a few courses and decided it wasn’t for her.<br/>
<br/>
“The vast majority of people who would leave the church never really joined the church in the first place, ie they come in, try it, it’s not for them and they go. That would be, overwhelmingly, most people.”<br/>
<br/>
Scientology was introduced to Ireland when Hubbard established a Dublin mission, at 69 Merrion Square, in 1958. It was there that Hubbard, who would have turned 100 last weekend, first delivered the personal-efficiency course that Scientology recently began advertising on the Dart line.<br/>
<br/>
The school closed in the early 1960s, but Scientology continued to be practised in Ireland.<br/>
<br/>
In 1986 a Limerick man named John Keane began a mission from his home, and by the early 1990s Scientology had established itself at a base on Middle Abbey Street in Dublin. Since then the faith has seen modest growth in Ireland, says Ryan, with “only a few hundred Scientologists of varying degrees of commitment”.<br/>
<br/>
Ryan, who is now 52, found a second-hand copy of Dianetics in London in the late 1980s. Its lessons aided his architecture studies, he says, and later in his career helped him maintain his integrity when unethical opportunities arose in the construction industry.<br/>
<br/>
But he has never attained “clear” status – the fundamental goal in Scientology. “I’ve been a bit of a laggard in that respect,” he says with a laugh. “I spend most of my time studying it. I’m more of a philosophical bent.”<br/>
<br/>
Scientology’s utopian aim is to “clear the planet”, a point at which everyone has cleared themselves of “engrams”, the scars of painful events normally inaccessible to the conscious mind.<br/>
<br/>
The complexity and duration of the training involved mean Irish Scientologists aiming to reach clear status or above are required to travel to the UK or the US. Twenty or 30 members have done this, Ryan says, though it would cost “many thousands of euro” to reach the top level, Operating Thetan VIII, which must be studied at sea.<br/>
<br/>
One member to have achieved this status is 90-year-old Bernard Duffy, who was an original pupil of Hubbard in Dublin.<br/>
<br/>
Although Ryan says he understands “the broad thrust” of what the higher levels involve, he can neither attest to the heightened abilities they are said to induce, such as telepathy and out-of-body experiences, nor dispel people’s misgivings with those teachings.<br/>
<br/>
“What can I say? I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve personally never witnessed any of these alleged abilities. I can only go on my personal experience, and my personal experience of Scientology is pretty good.”<br/>
<br/>
He says Scientologists who have reached the higher levels but struggle with health, finances and temperament are not indictments of the religion’s tangible benefits.<br/>
<br/>
“If I see some OT” – that is, Operating Thetan, indicating a Scientologist who has gone beyond the clear level – “some guy who’s gone up high on the levels and they’re not doing well in life, from my experience that tells me something is wrong. Something has gone awry there. I would actually seek to help the guy.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t make decisions about my life based on another person’s experience, because that’s a second-hand decision. If I try something in Scientology and it doesn’t work, if it’s bad or crap and everything else, I will make my decision based upon that experience.”<br/>
<br/>
The Dublin mission participates in a yearly competition to increase square footage, called the birthday game, which it won last year after moving to a bigger premises on Middle Abbey Street.<br/>
<br/>
The mission is also effectively in competition with missions in the UK, India and Pakistan to submit “up stats” – rising figures – every week, though Ryan admits they struggle to reach their targets. About 10 per cent of the Dublin mission’s income goes to the Church of Scientology, which has been unsuccessful in its attempts to obtain tax-free, charitable status in Ireland.<br/>
<br/>
Ryan gives little credence to criticism of Scientology, explaining that it tends to be either “unbelievable garbage” or personnel issues. “If every single thing they say about us is true, which is a laugh, that would not be one fraction of the things that, say, China is doing to human rights or the Catholic Church did in Ireland.”<br/>
<br/>
For Ryan the fact that Scientology has grown “from zero to millions” in the face of opposition over the past 60 years shows that it clearly holds value in some people’s lives.<br/>
<br/>
“There’s no doubt about it,” he says. “Some people have tried it and it doesn’t work for them. That’s a fact. It’s quite clearly worked for an awful lot more.”<br/>
<br/>
In numbers<br/>
<br/>
More than 50,000 people have taken Scientology's personality test in Dublin.<br/>
<br/>
Scientology has more than 9,000 churches, missions and affiliated groups in 165 countries.<br/>
<br/>
92 million books by L Ron Hubbard and lectures on Dianetics and Scientology have been distributed in the past decade. Three million of those have been placed in more than 150,000 libraries in 192 countries since July 2007.<br/>
<br/>
Scientology's properties increased from about 520,000 sq m in 2004 to more than 1.1 million sq m in 2010.<br/>
<br/>
The Scientology Volunteer Ministers programme has aided more than than 175 disaster-relief efforts worldwide.<br/>
<br/>
Scientology supports drug-rehabilitation programmes in more than 45 countries.<br/>
<br/>
Hubbard's works have been translated into 71 languages, a Guinness World Record.<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/0319/1224292581794.html">http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/0319/1224292581794.html</a><br />
<div style="xg-p: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 1210px; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow: hidden;" class="mcePaste" id="_mcePaste"><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/0319/1224292581794.html">http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/0319/1224292581794.html</a></div>
"The Celebrity Magnet 'Church' Ron Built" - The Irish Examiner, March 2011
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2011-03-18:2163779:BlogPost:12602
2011-03-18T08:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard would have been 100 on Sunday. He has left behind a controversial legacy, says Jonathan de Burca Butler<br></br>
<br></br>
This Sunday, one hundred years ago, the founder of one of the world's most contoversial religions was born in Nebraska. L Ron Hubbard founded The Church of Scientology - an organisation which for the last 60 years of its existence has attracted criticism and praise in equally strong measure.<br></br>
<br></br>
In recent years members such as Tom Cruise…
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard would have been 100 on Sunday. He has left behind a controversial legacy, says Jonathan de Burca Butler<br/>
<br/>
This Sunday, one hundred years ago, the founder of one of the world's most contoversial religions was born in Nebraska. L Ron Hubbard founded The Church of Scientology - an organisation which for the last 60 years of its existence has attracted criticism and praise in equally strong measure.<br/>
<br/>
In recent years members such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta have raised the profile of the organisation and are fiercely protective of it.<br/>
<br/>
But Gabrielle Wynn, (22), from Whitehall in Dublin, left the Church of Scientology less than a year ago having been a member for two years.<br/>
<br/>
"One of the classes I had to take in college was Social Studies and we had to do a project on religions in Ireland," says Wynne of her initial contact. "So I came across this religion that really, I didn't know anything about."<br/>
<br/>
Wynne visited the church's Irish office in Dublin's city centre to conduct an interview with a member of the church. She found the organisation intriguing and a few days later returned for a free personality test.<br/>
<br/>"I suppose I was a bit of a loose cannon when I was younger", explains Wynne. "So I mean for me it was great because I had my own things to sort out and they make you feel great. Everyone was really friendly. They make you feel like you're better than everyone else."<br/>
<br/>
Wynne explains that although her mother had warned her off joining and her friends were, as she says herself, "constantly slaggin her," she got most deeply involved.<br/>
<br/>
The church had told her that there was a good chance of being misunderstood and she was taught to 'handle' people; speaking to them individually about the religion and its positive aspects.<br/>
<br/>
Eventually her friends relented but only due to her increasingly defensive behaviour.<br/>
<br/>
Gerard Ryan, a spokesperson for the church and a member for 25 years, disputes some of Gabrielle's claims.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know anything about handling," says Ryan. "Gabi was in the Mission for a few months only. She didn't hang around too long."<br/>
<br/>
Wynne, who denies that claim, says as time passed she learned dianetic auditing which, according to the Scientology Dublin website, "is a methodology which can help alleviate unwanted sensations and emotions, irrational fears and psychosomatic illnesses ...[and] ... is more accurtately described as what the soul is doing to the body through the mind."<br/>
<br/>
"That's the one I did and that's what I was trained in too," says Wynne. "They get you to a state of reverie. They say it's not hypnotic, but it is kind of like a light trance. They tell you to contact the first painful incidnet that comes into your mind, it could be physical pain or emotional, and tell you to go through the whole thing; tell them what you're feeling, what you're hearing and then they say go back to the beginning, go through it again and again.<br/>
<br/>
On every person they have what's called a PC file, a 'Pre-Clear' file. When you have no more pain, or you don't have any issues with what you were auditing, you're clear so the Pre-Clear is the time before all that."<br/>
<br/>
One of the things a new member does when joining is sign a declaration agreeing that the church can keep the notes taken at the time of auditing.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, at the spiritual counselling sessions the counsellor makes notes as the counselling is going on," says Ryan.<br/>
<br/>
"And thos notes actually belong to the church. For example I've never seen my own notes."<br/>
<br/>
Another condition, according to Wynne, is there are no refunds and she estimates that she spent nearly €2,500 during her tiime there.<br/>
<br/>
"I've kept a lot of reciepts," she says. "It's not a lot in comparison to other people, but it's about two and a half grand in two years."<br/>
<br/>
Wynne says that because she was living with her mother, who had made clear her feelings on Scientology, the organisation classified her as a PTS (Potential Trouble Source) while her mother was viewed as a potential SP (Suppressive Person). Wynne says it was suggested to her that it was perhaps time to move out of home, to 'disconnet' from her mother. Ryan, however, is not so sure.<br/>
<br/>
"Categorically Gabrielle was never at any time asked to disconnect from her mother," says Ryan. "Either directly or hinted."<br/>
<br/>
But does something akin to this ever occur?<br/>
<br/>
"We have the view that if you are intimately connected with someone who is actually attacking the church then you have to deal with it," says Ryan.<br/>
<br/>
"But to say that you can't be in contact with someone critical of the church, I'm often critical of my church. Like everything Scientology is not perfect."<br/>
<br/>
Last year Wynne decided to leave Scientology and has since campaigned against it with the help of a group called Anonymous.<br/>
<br/>
Wynn is grateful for her time with the church and although she feels they are a little "misguided", she say she also met some "very sincere and nice guys" during her time there.
"Scientology Adverts Under Investigation by Ads Watchdog" - Sunday Times, March 6th 2011
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2011-03-06:2163779:BlogPost:11906
2011-03-06T08:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
<p><img align="none" src="http://i.imgur.com/tsKek.jpg"></img> <br></br><br></br><strong>Row over posters that claim sessions can tackle job insecurity as former member of church describes campaign as ‘misleading and offensive’</strong><i><br></br></i><br></br>Complaints have been filed with the country’s advertising watchdog over a Church of Scientology campaign, which claims its courses can help with job insecurity.<br></br><br></br>The Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI) is investigating claims that the ads, appearing in Dublin’s train and Dart…</p>
<p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/tsKek.jpg" align="none"/><br/><br/><strong>Row over posters that claim sessions can tackle job insecurity as former member of church describes campaign as ‘misleading and offensive’</strong><i><br/></i><br/>Complaints have been filed with the country’s advertising watchdog over a Church of Scientology campaign, which claims its courses can help with job insecurity.<br/><br/>The Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI) is investigating claims that the ads, appearing in Dublin’s train and Dart stations and on buses, are misleading.<br/><br/>The billboards and posters feature photos of five downtrodden looking workers. “When job security turns into insecurity, success begins with personal efficiency,” they advise, urging people to “attend a course in Scientology”. It is the first time Scientology has marketed its courses this way, according to Gerard Ryan, its Irish director.<br/><br/>On its website, Scientology Dublin says an afternoon session costing €45 will give participants “the means to new ability and lasting security in the workplace — all from application of Scientology to the workaday world with The Problems of Work by L Ron Hubbard”, the science fiction writer who founded Scientology. The fee includes “free testing”, a copy of the Hubbard book, and a film presentation.<br/><br/>Frank Goodman, the ASAI chief executive, said the agency had “had a small number of complaints” about the campaign and decided to inquire further. “We have to follow due process and we are legally required to go to the advertiser about the complaints,” he said. “We’re not taking it up on religious grounds but will see if it breaches any advertising code by being misleading.”<br/><br/>Pete Griffiths, a one-time staff member and now defector from Scientology who says he paid €10,000 over seven years to the organisation in membership fees and courses, believes the ads are misleading.<br/><br/>“What I found offensive is they are looking at all those who are feeling insecure about their job and deciding to use it as a sales ploy,” said the 57-year-old, a regular protester against the movement. Griffiths, who was encouraged by his brother and then wife to join, completed a similar course on tackling job insecurity.<br/><br/>“On one level, someone could do the afternoon course and come out feeling better and secure in their job, but in Scientology, when you complete a course, they ask you to write a success story,” he said. “If you say you don’t want to, you have to see a director to find out what went wrong. If you write it, you have to see the registrar and he will sell you your next course. You can’t just do what it says on that sign. If you just did the course and went back to your life, it would feel like you had some benefit, but you are not allowed to do that. You go from one course to the next.”<br/><br/>Ryan, who has done the course and pointed out that he is still working as an architect despite the economic downturn, confirmed participants are asked to write a “success story” and are offered other courses but added “if you don’t want to, you don’t”.<br/><br/>“I feel if you want to become a bit more confident in your life, you will become more happy in your life. If you are more confident and your boss had to make a decision about cutting your job or someone else’s, there’s less chance of you being let go than the other person. If you are more confident, you are more likely to get a job than someone who is not.”<br/><br/>Scientology claims millions of supporters across the world, with Hollywood actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta being among its devotees. Scientologists, who believe humans are descended from a race of aliens, claim they can purify the human mind through a process of “auditing”, whereby people relive stressful or traumatic events in their lives.<br/><br/>Griffiths said the promotion indicates the organisation is introducing an “emergency formula” prescribed by Hubbard when membership is drying up. Ryan said that is not the case, and that “a few” people have signed up to its courses as a result of the advertising.<br/><br/>Griffiths felt he was not able to speak out about his experiences until Anonymous, a group of internet users, began to protest outside Scientology meetings. Anonymous Ireland protests outside the movement’s offices on Middle Abbey Street in Dublin once a month.<br/><br/>“The protesters have no effect on us whatsoever,” Ryan said. “They are just kids. They just want to harass us.”<br/><br/> <em>Gabrielle Monaghan</em>
<br/><br/>Published: 6 March 2011<br/><br/><a href="http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/ireland/News/Irish_News/article571087.ece">http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/ireland/News/Irish_News/article571087.ece</a></p>
"Church of Scientology Under Investigation for Slave Labour" - February 7th 2011
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2011-02-07:2163779:BlogPost:10858
2011-02-07T21:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
<p><strong>Members of an FBI task force on human trafficking have been investigating the Church of Scientology for over a year, according to an article in the New Yorker.</strong></p>
<p><strong><br></br></strong></p>
<p>The New Yorker profile of ex-Scientologist writer/director Paul Haggis, responsible for movies such as Million Dollar Baby and Crash, paints a strange picture off what life as a prominent member of Scientology is like. One of the larger revelations involves the existence of an…</p>
<p><strong>Members of an FBI task force on human trafficking have been investigating the Church of Scientology for over a year, according to an article in the New Yorker.</strong></p>
<p><strong><br/></strong></p>
<p>The New Yorker profile of ex-Scientologist writer/director Paul Haggis, responsible for movies such as Million Dollar Baby and Crash, paints a strange picture off what life as a prominent member of Scientology is like. One of the larger revelations involves the existence of an ongoing FBI investigation into allegations of abuse by Scientology’s leader David Miscavige, and the enslavement of members of Scientology’s religious order, “Sea Org”.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>According to the article, agents from an FBI task force on human trafficking have been conducting interviews with former members of Scientology about abuse in the church for over a year and the case remains open.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_wright?currentPage=all" target="_blank">article reads</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The laws regarding trafficking were built largely around forced prostitution, but they also pertain to slave labor. Under federal law, slavery is defined, in part, by the use of coercion, torture, starvation, imprisonment, threats, and psychological abuse. The California penal code lists several indicators that someone may be a victim of human trafficking: signs of trauma or fatigue; being afraid or unable to talk, because of censorship by others or security measures that prevent communication with others; working in one place without the freedom to move about; owing a debt to one’s employer; and not having control over identification documents. Those conditions echo the testimony of many former Sea Org members…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The author of the piece, Lawrence Wright, is due to release a book on Scientology later this year. Paul Haggis left the Church of Scientology in 2009 after clashing with the church over their backing of Prop 8, the constitutional amendment which provided “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://newswhip.ie/international/church-of-scientology-under-investigation-for-slave-labour">http://newswhip.ie/international/church-of-scientology-under-investigation-for-slave-labour</a></p>
"Scientology: mind control and empty pockets" - Ireland's Big Issue, November 8th 2010
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2010-11-08:2163779:BlogPost:10733
2010-11-08T23:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
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<br></br><br></br><br></br>Scientology is quite likely the most ruthless, litigious and the most lucrative cult ever, according to Samantha Bailie. (1638 Words) - By Samantha Bailie<br></br> <br></br>
<img alt="BI Ireland_Scientology_lisa mcpherson healthy" height="330" src="http://i51.tinypic.com/r01du9.jpg" title="Lisa McPherson. Photo courtesy of Ireland's Big Issue" width="540"></img> <br></br>
Lisa McPherson. Photo courtesy of Ireland's Big Issue<div><br></br> Just what is this 'religion' which boasts high profile members including Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Juliette…</div>
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<br/><br/><br/>Scientology is quite likely the most ruthless, litigious and the most lucrative cult ever, according to Samantha Bailie. (1638 Words) - By Samantha Bailie<br/> <br/>
<img src="http://i51.tinypic.com/r01du9.jpg" alt="BI Ireland_Scientology_lisa mcpherson healthy" title="Lisa McPherson. Photo courtesy of Ireland's Big Issue" height="330" width="540"/><br/>
Lisa McPherson. Photo courtesy of Ireland's Big Issue<div><br/> Just what is this 'religion' which boasts high profile members including Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Juliette Lewis and Kirstie Alley? In a word, Scientology which was the 'brainchild' of Science Fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. It teaches its followers that people are immortal spiritual beings who have forgotten their true nature. Spiritual renewal involves a process called auditing in which an individual has to relive painful or traumatic past events in their lives in order to break free from their limiting effects. This all sounds pretty harmless, if a little kooky but critics of auditing suggest that this process is nothing more than cult style programming much akin to behaviour modification techniques which results in the individual being psychologically manipulated.<br/>
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Auditing has raised fears as sessions are always recorded and stored. Members are induced to confess to acts, which if not outright illegal, are embarrassing or destructive to the person's marriage, job or family life, i.e. shoplifting, adultery, sexual information, lies etc. These confessions have to be written down in the member's own handwriting under the guise of a 'religious confession' for the individual's 'own good'. The truth is that these 'confessions' are kept to blackmail and extort the member should they dare to speak out! The member is also coerced to sign documents that are self-damaging while protecting the organization, solely in case the member dares to leave their control and speak the truth.<br/>
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Ex member Amy Scobee describes the 'church' as "…a dangerous cult". When she refused to be a part of the 'religion' any longer, intimidate details from her auditing session were leaked to the St. Petersburg Times in Florida. (The 'church' admitted they sent these confidential details to the newspaper!) Psychiatrists say these auditing sessions can produce a drugged-like, mind-controlled euphoria that ensures people come back, convinced they need more sessions. To pay their fees, newcomers can earn commission by recruiting new people, or by joining the church they can receive free counselling in exchange for signing a contract for a "billion years of labour"!<br/>
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Scientology has come under great criticism for many things such as holding people against their will. The 'church' claims that this is all within their policy and thus they do not feel that they are breaking the law! Lisa McPherson was forcibly held and was denied medical care and forcibly sedated, she died in their care after 17 days! When her guards tried to force her to undergo the 'Introspection Rundown' (this process is where an individual is deemed psychotic, isolated, prevented from leaving, and given the silent treatment by those guarding him/her), she was kept in isolation watch-down until she died from severe dehydration.<br/>
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Forensic entomologists later identified cockroach feeding sights on her body. The Medical Examiner's Office in this incidence did not adhere to its policy to preserve evidence, and released the body for cremation before a cause of death had been determined. It was discovered during a civil suit that the examiner's office had actually destroyed documents regarding the case!<br/>
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Lies are told in order to gleam finances from people, by explaining that Scientology is compatible with other faiths, and that there is a scientific basis for all of their processes - both of which are false statements. Money is extorted on the premise that a person's life will get worse if they do not cough up the cash for expensive auditing. Scientologists practice medicine without any knowledge or qualifications, a common belief is that prescribed medication should not be taken but should be replaced by auditing and vitamins. Who can forget the flurry of abuse hailed upon Brooke Shields in the media by Scientologist Tom Cruise when she talked openly of using anti-depressants in her fight against post-natal depression?<br/>
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Criminal activities are common such as breaking into government offices and stealing documents, electronically bugging government departments, lying to federal investigators and a grand jury, forcibly restraining, kidnapping, handcuffing and gagging a potential adverse witness! Free speech is heavily frowned upon as anyone who criticises their 'religion' is seen as 'fair game.'(Fair Game is stated in the policy document as follows: "[A person] May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist.<br/>
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May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.") Journalist Paulette Cooper was framed by the cult for sending bomb threats after she wrote The Scandal of Scientology. The 'church' also imposes gag orders in settlement agreements preventing those who have suffered the most from speaking openly and telling the world what they know.<br/>
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Probably most disturbing is the fact that Scientology splits individuals from their families through their Disconnection Policy. When Scientologists are asked why they do this, there appears to be a standard answer: "A Scientologist can have trouble making spiritual progress in his auditing or training if he is connected to someone who is suppressive or who is antagonistic to Scientology or its tenets. He will get better from Scientology, but then may lose his gains because he is being invalidated by the antagonistic person. In order to resolve this, he either handles the other person's antagonism with true data about the Church, or as a last resort when all attempts to handle have failed, he disconnects from the person."<br/>
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Ex-member Kim Baker describes the Disconnection Policy: "……If a Scientologist gets sick, or has accidents, or is moody, they are told that they are connected to a suppressive person or influence, and they are instructed to find that source of suppression. Often, it turns out to be a parent, a spouse, a child, a boss, or a social contact. There are specific methods for dealing with the suppressive, from handling them, to ending up disconnecting from them." It is frightening to belief that Suppressive Persons (or SPs as they are called) are people who don't believe in Scientology, and if a mother believes her child is a SP or a man believes his wife is a SP they are expected to leave them! Is it any wonder that the public are frightened of Scientology? Ex-member Yolanda Howell states: "I saw one staff member's child, who had been declared a Suppressive Person at age 12, turned out onto the street with no means of support.<br/>
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When he tried to sneak into the galley line to get some food, he was physically jumped by two adults who forced him outside again." A Scientologist is the last person in the world permitted to speak against Scientology, and if he tries, he becomes a 'suppressive person' and 'enemy of Scientology' and no other Scientologist is permitted to associate with him. Anyone who knows a suppressive is 'reviewed' (and charged a hefty sum for it!) and declared a 'Potential Trouble Source' or 'PTS' until he "handles or disconnects" from the suppressive. If a Potential Trouble Source refuses to disconnect from someone on the suppressive list, he becomes suppressive, and one American boy was declared suppressive for failing to disconnect from his father -- although the child was only ten years old! Surely religion should be about love, kindness, nurturing relationships, honesty and good behaviour - not leaving children who you believe are SP or making someone 'Fair Game' because they disagree with you.<br/>
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Noah Lottick a 24 year old Russian Studies student jumped to his death from the tenth floor of the Milford Plaza Hotel clutching $171, the only money he had not turned over to the Church of Scientology. His death inspired his father Edward, a physician, to start his own investigation of the church. "We thought Scientology was something like Dale Carnegie," Lottick says. "I now believe it's a school for psychopaths." Their so-called therapies are manipulations. They take the best and the brightest people and destroy them." According to an organisation that monitors more than 200 "mind control" cults, no group prompts more telephone pleas for help than Scientology. Cynthia Kisser, an advisor on cults in Chicago states: "Scientology is quite likely the most ruthless, the most classically terroristic, the most litigious and the most lucrative cult ever. No cult extracts more money from its members." It seems no one is immune and Scientologists' ruthlessness knows no bounds, targeting the vulnerable.<br/>
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Harriet Baker a 73 year old pensioner had just lost her husband to Cancer, and was in despair with grief when a Scientologist turned up at her home claiming she needed to buy a $1,300 auditing package to cure her of her feelings of loss. After being talked into $15,000 of auditing sessions, one of the 'church' members discovered that Harriet owned her home, so they arranged a $45,000 mortgage which they pressured her to use for more auditing. When Baker's children became suspicious and brought Harriet to her senses, the pensioner demanded a $27,000 refund for auditing services she hadn't as yet used. Two Scientologists arrived at Baker's home with an E-meter (auditing machine) to question her. She never got her money back and in fact had to sell her home to get herself out of the financial mess the 'church' had backed her into.<br/>
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People across Ireland, many of whom are part of Anonymous, a group dedicated to exposing the dangers of becoming involved with Scientology, have been demonstrating across Ireland, both north and south of the border in an attempt to warn of the many dangers involved with this 'religion'. People have a free will and free speech and are entitled to join any organisation of their choosing - the problem occurs when that free will and free speech are taken from you, something this 'cult' sees no problem with doing!<br/>
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><em style="font-style: italic; font-weight: normal;"><span>Originally published by Ireland's Big Issue. © <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://www.streetnewsservice.org/">www.streetnewsservice.org</a></span></em></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">From: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(94, 94, 94); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Arial, sans-serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://www.streetnewsservice.org/news/2010/november/feed-257/scientology-mind-control-and-empty-pockets-.aspx">http://www.streetnewsservice.org/news/2010/november/feed-257/scientology-mind-control-and-empty-pockets-.aspx</a></span></p>
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The Irish Times on 'Panorama: Secrets of Scientology', October 2nd 2010
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2010-10-02:2163779:BlogPost:10713
2010-10-02T08:30:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
Going back for a second helping and relishing the dish that’s best served cold was <span style="font-style: italic;">Panorama</span>’s John Sweeney, who in 2007 made a holy show of himself while making a documentary on Scientology. Then, the normally calm investigative reporter lost his temper and shouted with such in-your-face abandon at the Scientology spokesman that it became a YouTube sensation. This <span style="font-style: italic;">Panorama</span> documentary was his revenge, and his…
Going back for a second helping and relishing the dish that’s best served cold was <span style="font-style: italic;">Panorama</span>’s John Sweeney, who in 2007 made a holy show of himself while making a documentary on Scientology. Then, the normally calm investigative reporter lost his temper and shouted with such in-your-face abandon at the Scientology spokesman that it became a YouTube sensation. This <span style="font-style: italic;">Panorama</span> documentary was his revenge, and his ammunition was Mike Rinder, one of the spokespeople who had so thwarted him the last time but who has since left Scientology and is willing to spill the beans – sort of. All that Sweeney really got out of him and the others he spoke to who have left Scientology was that Sweeney wasn’t being paranoid in 2007 – he really was being followed by Scientologists who filmed his every move. Furthermore, they developed (obviously excellent) psychological strategies to make him lose his temper so that he’d look ridiculous.<br/><br/>The Church of Scientology still denied everything, of course, although this time the surveillance was obvious. Everywhere Sweeney went, so did several camera-carrying Scientologists. So far so creepy; this bizarre behaviour added weight to Sweeney’s contention that this is a brainwashing cult, not a religion. He talked to the actor Jason Bighe – Scientology is big in Hollywood – who had given over €1 million to the organisation but has now left it. Sweeney asked if he thought it was “a cult or a racket”. “They’re not mutually exclusive,” Bighe said.<br/><br/>By the end I don’t know if it was the swanky headquarters, the celeb converts, the fact that it was sunny everywhere he went or that everyone looked handsome in a clean, toothy Tom Cruise sort of way, but Scientology looked quite attractive – that’s if you don’t mind having your thoughts “audited” by an “E-meter”, a gizmo Captain Kirk might have had in his drawer, and paying a fortune to rise up through the ranks and make yourself believe in Xenu and his intergalactic confederacy that existed 75 million years ago. At least you get to live for a billion years or more, which is about how long we’ll be paying for Anglo Irish Bank.<br/><br/><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/1002/1224280149687.html">http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/1002/1224280149687.html</a><br/>
"Russian court bans Scientology material" - Irish Sun, April 22nd 2010
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2010-04-22:2163779:BlogPost:10504
2010-04-22T00:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
Russia has decided to ban books and recordings by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.<br></br><br></br>The Hubbard books have been found by a Russian court to be extremist.<br></br><br></br>The distribution ban involves 28 books and video discs containing lectures by Hubbard, a US science fiction author who founded Scientology in 1954.<br></br><br></br>While the Church of Scientology is regarded in some countries as a church, or legitimate faith, in others it is thought to be a cult which tempts its members to part…
Russia has decided to ban books and recordings by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.<br/><br/>The Hubbard books have been found by a Russian court to be extremist.<br/><br/>The distribution ban involves 28 books and video discs containing lectures by Hubbard, a US science fiction author who founded Scientology in 1954.<br/><br/>While the Church of Scientology is regarded in some countries as a church, or legitimate faith, in others it is thought to be a cult which tempts its members to part with large sums of money.<br/><br/>In Russia some texts by Jehovah's Witnesses are also banned.<br/><br/>Prosecutors in Russia had urged the court to ban the Hubbard material, saying it contained calls to commit crimes motivated by religious hatred; in particular against critics of Scientology.<br/><br/>The Church of Scientology has called the Russian court decision as a mistake caused by misunderstanding.<br/><br/>Russia has in the past been fined by the European Court of Human Rights for refusing to register Scientology as a religious entity.<br/><br/>From: <a href="http://www.irishsun.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/aba4168066a10b8d/id/625928/cs/1/">http://www.irishsun.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/aba4168066a10b8d/id/625928/cs/1/</a>
"Australian senate votes down call to probe Scientology" - Irish Examiner, March 19th 2010
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2010-03-19:2163779:BlogPost:10112
2010-03-19T08:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
<p class="deck">AUSTRALIA’S Senate yesterday overwhelmingly rejected a call for an inquiry into allegations against the Church of Scientology, made by former members who claim to have been abused, harassed or coerced into having abortions.<br></br><br></br> Senator Nick Xenophon’s motion to authorise a senate committee to hold a wide-reaching inquiry into the church that was founded in 1953 by the late US science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard attracted only six votes in the 76-seat chamber. Another 33…</p>
<p class="deck">AUSTRALIA’S Senate yesterday overwhelmingly rejected a call for an inquiry into allegations against the Church of Scientology, made by former members who claim to have been abused, harassed or coerced into having abortions.<br/><br/> Senator Nick Xenophon’s motion to authorise a senate committee to hold a wide-reaching inquiry into the church that was founded in 1953 by the late US science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard attracted only six votes in the 76-seat chamber. Another 33 voted against it and the remaining senators abstained.<br/><br/> The church welcomed the Senate’s rejection of what the church described as a "political witch hunt". <br/><br/> "Allegations by some women that they were forced to have abortions are nonsense," the church said in a statement from its Australian headquarters in Sydney. "It is not the role of parliament to investigate any religious organisation or seek to use parliament as a forum for an unfounded attack on any religion."<br/><br/>
A handful of former church members watched the Senate vote from the public gallery, including Jeanette Lang, who claims the church pressured her into having two abortions.<br/><br/> "I’m humiliated, I worry about what other people think of me, I worry about what I think of me – what I’ve done because at the end of the day, it was me who went through with it," Lang told reporters before the vote.<br/><br/> Senator Chris Evans,
the Labour government’s leader in the upper house, said the allegations against the church should be investigated – but not by a parliamentary inquiry. The measure faced defeat since neither the ruling Labour Party nor the opposition Liberal Party supported it.<br/><br/> "This troubles me and claims about other sects trouble me," Evans told the Senate.<br/><br/>
Xenophon, an independent, said he would continue to push for an inquiry when parliament reconvenes in May.<br/><br/> The Los Angeles-based church has long attracted controversy. In October last year, a Paris court convicted the church of fraud and fined it more than $900,000, but stopped short of banning its activities in France.</p>
<br/>From: <a href="http://www.examiner.ie/archives/2010/0319/world/australian-senate-votes-down-call-to-probe-scientology-114869.html#ixzz0icQQ2Xrb">http://www.examiner.ie/archives/2010/0319/world/australian-senate-votes-down-call-to-probe-scientology-114869.html</a>
Human Rights Activists Celebrate 2009's Many Wins Against Scientology Cult
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2009-12-23:2163779:BlogPost:8308
2009-12-23T20:30:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
As 2009 comes to a close, the Scientology organization is reeling from another year of high-level defections, criminal convictions, journalistic exposes and books detailing the cult's criminal practices, and intense pressure from human rights activists. The Anonymous global network of human rights activists are keen to hold Scientology's leaders accountable for their crimes, which include organized fraud, human trafficking, kidnapping, obstruction of justice, and toxic waste dumping.<br />
<br />
Here are…
As 2009 comes to a close, the Scientology organization is reeling from another year of high-level defections, criminal convictions, journalistic exposes and books detailing the cult's criminal practices, and intense pressure from human rights activists. The Anonymous global network of human rights activists are keen to hold Scientology's leaders accountable for their crimes, which include organized fraud, human trafficking, kidnapping, obstruction of justice, and toxic waste dumping.<br />
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Here are just a few of the many recent victories against the Scientology organization, which until quite recently believed itself immune to all criticism, able to do as it pleased in its insane quest to "clear the planet" of non-Scientologists through the "global obliteration of psychiatry."<br />
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* Monthly and flash protests continue at Scientology offices worldwide: The Anonymous activists continued their monthly protests for a second solid year. These and frequent "flash" spontaneous protests at Scientology buildings continued to shine a spotlight on the crime-cult's activities.<br />
* Numerous major lawsuits were filed against Scientology, for causes ranging from wrongful death to human trafficking. All of these lawsuits are presently going forward in ways that are favorable to the plaintiff in each case (i.e. Scientology's motions are generally denied and the plaintiff's motions are generally granted).<br />
* The St. Petersburg Times published a major series of articles detailing the violent outbursts of Scientology's leader David Miscavige, as well as Scientology management's general criminality and abusive behavior. This series can be read at <a href="http://www.truthrundown.org">www.truthrundown.org</a><br />
* California's KESQ television and reporter Nathan Baca brought an excellent investigation of the human rights and other abuses taking place at Scientology's "Gold Base" desert compound. At Gold Base, a paramilitary cadre of Scientologists called the "Sea Org" work 100-hour weeks for less than $50 per week, live in filthy, crowded barracks, and are watched carefully to prevent escape. Indeed, the fence around Gold Base features razor-sharp spikes pointing inward to prevent escape. Also, in an interview with hapless Scientology spokesmodel Tommy Davis, reporter Baca led Davis into admitting that an evil galactic dictator from 75 million years ago, "Lord Xenu," was an integral component of Scientology "scripture.<br />
* Australia's Nine News television program also featured quite a lot of hard-hitting Scientology coverage, as did the Nightline program in the USA. In the latter program, hosted by journalist Martin Bashir, Tommy Davis fled the set in a bizarre tantrum as Bashir asked for clarity about the Xenu question.<br />
* Two main branches of Scientology in France were convicted of organized fraud, and sentenced to pay fines of over €600,000 (£550,000). Four leading cult officials received suspended prison sentences of between 18 months and two years, as well as fines ranging from €5,000 to €30,000. This was only the latest of several fraud convictions for Scientology in France; indeed, the cult's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, was convicted of fraud there in 1978.<br />
* Several important new books told the story of top-level defectors from behind the scenes in Scientology. John Duignan's "The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology" was published in February; Nancy Many's "My Billion Year Contract: Memoir of a Former Scientologist" was published in October; and Marc Headley's "Blown for Good: Behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology" was published in November. At the present time, "Blown for Good" is the #1 bestselling book about Scientology on Amazon.com; "My Billion Year Contract"" is #3.<br />
* Hollywood writer and director Paul Haggis publicly left Scientology in October, upset at Tommy Davis' denial of Scientology's vicious practice of "Disconnection" from all loved ones who may be critical of Scientology, as well as of the cult's support of California's anti-family Proposition 8. Haggis knew "Disconnection" to be a core cult practice because his own wife was ordered to stop talking to her parents.<br />
* In November, Australian Senator Nick Xenophon called for a Senate inquiry into Scientology's criminal activities in that country. Meanwhile, Australian police investigators openly criticized the cult for obstructing their investigation of a young soldier's suicide. This young man, Edward McBride, had spent $25,000 on Scientology courses in the preceding months, and was heavily being pressured by dozens of calls and text messages from Scientology offices in the day before his death.<br />
<br />
These are just some of the many, many excellent wins against the Scientology criminal organization in the past year. Notwithstanding all of Scientology's posturing in incessant floods of press releases about its alleged "explosive growth" and "tremendous worldwide expansion," the fact remains that Scientology is the world's fastest shrinking cult, with perhaps 50,000 people in the world who would be willing to admit their membership.<br />
<br />
There aren't any comprehensive worldwide surveys of what people believe, but there is plenty of other evidence to show that there aren't really very many Scientologists in the world.<br />
<br />
* In 2001, the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) reported that there were 55,000 adults in the United States who consider themselves Scientologists.<br />
* In 2008, the same survey team estimated there to be 25,000 Americans identifying as Scientologists.<br />
* The 2001 United Kingdom census contained a voluntary question on religion, to which approximately 48,000,000 chose to respond. Of those living in England and Wales who responded, a total of 1,781 said they were Scientologists.<br />
* In 2001, Statistics Canada, the national census agency, reported a total of 1,525 Scientologists nationwide.<br />
* In the 2006 New Zealand census, 357 people identified themselves as Scientologists<br />
* In 2006, Australia's national census recorded 2,507 Scientologists nationwide.<br />
* In 2008, the Pew Forum's Statistics on Religion in America Report didn't even bother to mention the number of Scientologists they found, though their analysis noted religious affiliations down to less than 0.3%, with such beliefs as "Wiccan" and "Pagan."<br />
<br />
Scientology's spokesmen have sometimes attempted to refute the statistical estimates by saying that perhaps the respondents were also Christians or members of other religions, and that it is possible to be both a Scientologist and a member of another religion. Such claims are patently false, both in the essentials of belief as well as in Scientology's explicit declaration that "as a practical matter Scientologists are expected to and do become fully devoted to Scientology to the exclusion of other faiths."<br />
<br />
Despite Scientology's attempts to create a perception of "massive growth," there is an abundance of evidence, even beyond the census and survey data, that the cult has never been particularly large, and is rapidly getting smaller.<br />
<br />
ABOUT SCIENTOLOGY:<br />
<br />
Scientology is much more than just a weird and wacky Hollywood fad, in which celebrities make fools of themselves and provide material for gossip magazines. Beyond its status as a "religion" in the USA, which it obtained through a secret deal with the Internal Revenue Service, and which give it extraordinary benefits not permitted to any other group, Scientology is also a multinational criminal racket. The average person would be shocked to learn the amount of influence Scientology wields, mostly due to blackmailing and intimidation of government officials. Scientology's primary goals are to "clear the planet" and to "obliterate" psychiatry and the mental health profession, replacing it with Scientology. They are prepared to do this by any means necessary, and are adept in using their many front groups to portray the cult as concerned humanitarians. The opposite is true. Indeed, according to L. Ron Hubbard, critics of Scientology are to be considered "fair game," and "[m]ay be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed." (L. Ron Hubbard, "HCOPL 18 October 67 Issue IV, Penalties for Lower Conditions").<br />
<br />
ABOUT ANONYMOUS:<br />
<br />
The Anonymous worldwide human rights activists are a network of thousands of ordinary people from around the world who are appalled and horrified by the Scientology organization and its abuses, and are working to stop it.
Scientology and the criminalisation of blasphemy
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2010-01-01:2163779:BlogPost:8470
2010-01-01T22:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
There are many reasons why we protest Scientology. Their history of violating free speech, the processes they use to separate people from their family and their cash, the spreading of dangerous medical advice regarding mental health, etc. etc. And yet whenever confronted with these criticisms, which are backed up by abundant victim testimony and court cases decisions, the Scientology spokespeople respond with same tired refrain – “You are all religious bigots.” For an example of Scientology’s…
There are many reasons why we protest Scientology. Their history of violating free speech, the processes they use to separate people from their family and their cash, the spreading of dangerous medical advice regarding mental health, etc. etc. And yet whenever confronted with these criticisms, which are backed up by abundant victim testimony and court cases decisions, the Scientology spokespeople respond with same tired refrain – “You are all religious bigots.” For an example of Scientology’s response to criticism see <a href="http://anoneire.ning.com/profiles/blogs/2163779:BlogPost:1027">this letter by Gerard Ryan</a>, Scientology spokesperson for Ireland.<br />
<br />
The blasphemy law, as it currently stands, contains the following passage exempting Scientology:<br />
(4) In this section “religion” does not include an organisation or<br />
cult—<br />
(a) the principal object of which is the making of profit, or<br />
(b) that employs oppressive psychological manipulation—<br />
(i) of its followers, or<br />
(ii) for the purpose of gaining new followers.<br />
<br />
The reason why Anonymous is supporting the campaign to repeal this law is simple. Scientology has, for the entirety of its existence, attempted to use the mantle of religion to hide its appalling abuses. While the law as it currently stands will have little effect on our campaign, we feel it is important to highlight the abuse of defamation laws to silence legitimate criticism. Scientology is one of the most litigious cults to ever exist and would almost certainly have attempted to use this law to silence criticism but for the above amendment. The example of Scientology, and their history of abusing the legal system to squelch free speech, should serve as a stern warning against any such laws.<br />
<br />
<cite>From <a href="http://blasphemy.ie/2010/01/01/atheist-ireland-publishes-25-blasphemous-quotes/">Atheist Ireland</a>:</cite><blockquote>"From today, 1 January 2010, the new Irish blasphemy law becomes operational, and we begin our campaign to have it repealed. Blasphemy is now a crime punishable by a €25,000 fine. The new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted. This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic States led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level. We believe in the golden rule: that we have a right to be treated justly, and that we have a responsibility to treat other people justly. Blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous. Publication of 25 blasphemous quotes In this context we now publish a list of 25 blasphemous quotes, which have previously been published by or uttered by or attributed to Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Mark Twain, Tom Lehrer, Randy Newman, James Kirkup, Monty Python, Rev Ian Paisley, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Frank Zappa, Salman Rushdie, Bjork, Amanda Donohoe, George Carlin, Paul Woodfull, Jerry Springer the Opera, Tim Minchin, Richard Dawkins, Pope Benedict XVI, Christopher Hitchens, PZ Myers, Ian O’Doherty, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Dermot Ahern.
Despite these quotes being abusive and insulting in relation to matters held sacred by various religions, we unreservedly support the right of these people to have published or uttered them, and we unreservedly support the right of any Irish citizen to make comparable statements about matters held sacred by any religion without fear of being criminalised, and without having to prove to a court that a reasonable person would find any particular value in the statement.<br />
<br />
Campaign begins to repeal the Irish blasphemy law<br />
<br />
We ask Fianna Fail and the Green Party to repeal their anachronistic blasphemy law, as part of the revision of the Defamation Act that is included within the Act. We ask them to hold a referendum to remove the reference to blasphemy from the Irish Constitution.<br />
<br />
We also ask all TDs and Senators to support a referendum to remove references to God from the Irish Constitution, including the clauses that prevent atheists from being appointed as President of Ireland or as a Judge without swearing a religious oath asking God to direct them in their work.<br />
<br />
If you run a website, blog or other media publication, please feel free to republish this statement and the list of quotes yourself, in order to show your support for the campaign to repeal the Irish blasphemy law and to promote a rational, ethical, secular Ireland.<br />
<br />
List of 25 Blasphemous Quotes Published by Atheist Ireland<br />
<br />
1. Jesus Christ, when asked if he was the son of God, in Matthew 26:64: “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” According to the Christian Bible, the Jewish chief priests and elders and council deemed this statement by Jesus to be blasphemous, and they sentenced Jesus to death for saying it.<br />
<br />
2. Jesus Christ, talking to Jews about their God, in John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” This is one of several chapters in the Christian Bible that can give a scriptural foundation to Christian anti-Semitism. The first part of John 8, the story of “whoever is without sin cast the first stone”, was not in the original version, but was added centuries later. The original John 8 is a debate between Jesus and some Jews. In brief, Jesus calls the Jews who disbelieve him sons of the Devil, the Jews try to stone him, and Jesus runs away and hides.<br />
<br />
3. Muhammad, quoted in Hadith of Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 8 Hadith 427: “May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their prophets.” This quote is attributed to Muhammad on his death-bed as a warning to Muslims not to copy this practice of the Jews and Christians. It is one of several passages in the Koran and in Hadith that can give a scriptural foundation to Islamic anti-Semitism, including the assertion in Sura 5:60 that Allah cursed Jews and turned some of them into apes and swine.<br />
<br />
4. Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name - The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy - he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.” Twain’s book was published posthumously in 1939. His daughter, Clara Clemens, at first objected to it being published, but later changed her mind in 1960 when she believed that public opinion had grown more tolerant of the expression of such ideas. That was half a century before Fianna Fail and the Green Party imposed a new blasphemy law on the people of Ireland.<br />
<br />
5. Tom Lehrer, The Vatican Rag, 1963: “Get in line in that processional, step into that small confessional. There, the guy who’s got religion’ll tell you if your sin’s original. If it is, try playing it safer, drink the wine and chew the wafer. Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate!”<br />
<br />
6. Randy Newman, God’s Song, 1972: “And the Lord said: I burn down your cities - how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind.”<br />
<br />
7. James Kirkup, The Love That Dares to Speak its Name, 1976: “While they prepared the tomb I kept guard over him. His mother and the Magdalen had gone to fetch clean linen to shroud his nakedness. I was alone with him… I laid my lips around the tip of that great cock, the instrument of our salvation, our eternal joy. The shaft, still throbbed, anointed with death’s final ejaculation.” This extract is from a poem that led to the last successful blasphemy prosecution in Britain, when Denis Lemon was given a suspended prison sentence after he published it in the now-defunct magazine Gay News. In 2002, a public reading of the poem, on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, failed to lead to any prosecution. In 2008, the British Parliament abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.<br />
<br />
8. Matthias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath, in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979: “Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”<br />
<br />
9. Rev Ian Paisley MEP to the Pope in the European Parliament, 1988: “I denounce you as the Antichrist.” Paisley’s website describes the Antichrist as being “a liar, the true son of the father of lies, the original liar from the beginning… he will imitate Christ, a diabolical imitation, Satan transformed into an angel of light, which will deceive the world.”<br />
<br />
10. Conor Cruise O’Brien, 1989: “In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: ‘Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.’ Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.”<br />
<br />
11. Frank Zappa, 1989: “If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine - but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good - and cares about any of it - to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.”<br />
<br />
12. Salman Rushdie, 1990: “The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.” In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because of blasphemous passages in Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.<br />
<br />
13. Bjork, 1995: “I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”<br />
<br />
14. Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: “Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”<br />
<br />
15. George Carlin, 1999: “Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”<br />
<br />
16. Paul Woodfull as Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly, The Ballad of Jaysus Christ, 2000: “He said me ma’s a virgin and sure no one disagreed, Cause they knew a lad who walks on water’s handy with his feet… Jaysus oh Jaysus, as cool as bleedin’ ice, With all the scrubbers in Israel he could not be enticed, Jaysus oh Jaysus, it’s funny you never rode, Cause it’s you I do be shoutin’ for each time I shoot me load.”<br />
<br />
17. Jesus Christ, in Jerry Springer The Opera, 2003: “Actually, I’m a bit gay.” In 2005, the Christian Institute tried to bring a prosecution against the BBC for screening Jerry Springer the Opera, but the UK courts refused to issue a summons.<br />
<br />
18. Tim Minchin, Ten-foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins, 2005: “So you’re gonna live in paradise, With a ten-foot cock and a few hundred virgins, So you’re gonna sacrifice your life, For a shot at the greener grass, And when the Lord comes down with his shiny rod of judgment, He’s gonna kick my heathen ass.”<br />
<br />
19. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, 2006: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” In 2007 Turkish publisher Erol Karaaslan was charged with the crime of insulting believers for publishing a Turkish translation of The God Delusion. He was acquitted in 2008, but another charge was brought in 2009. Karaaslan told the court that “it is a right to criticise religions and beliefs as part of the freedom of thought and expression.”<br />
<br />
20. Pope Benedict XVI quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor, 2006: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” This statement has already led to both outrage and condemnation of the outrage. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the world’s largest Muslim body, said it was a “character assassination of the prophet Muhammad”. The Malaysian Prime Minister said that “the Pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created.” Pakistan’s foreign Ministry spokesperson said that “anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”. The European Commission said that “reactions which are disproportionate and which are tantamount to rejecting freedom of speech are unacceptable.”<br />
<br />
21. Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great, 2007: “There is some question as to whether Islam is a separate religion at all… Islam when examined is not much more than a rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms, helping itself from earlier books and traditions as occasion appeared to require… It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or ‘surrender’ as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing-absolutely nothing-in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.”<br />
<br />
22. PZ Myers, on the Roman Catholic communion host, 2008: “You would not believe how many people are writing to me, insisting that these horrible little crackers (they look like flattened bits of styrofoam) are literally pieces of their god, and that this omnipotent being who created the universe can actually be seriously harmed by some third-rate liberal intellectual at a third-rate university… However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel.”<br />
<br />
23. Ian O’Doherty, 2009: “(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”<br />
<br />
24. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, 2009: “Whether a person is atheist or any other, there is in fact in my view something not totally human if they leave out the transcendent… we call it God… I think that if you leave that out you are not fully human.” Because atheism is not a religion, the Irish blasphemy law does not protect atheists from abusive and insulting statements about their fundamental beliefs. While atheists are not seeking such protection, we include the statement here to point out that it is discriminatory that this law does not hold all citizens equal.<br />
<br />
25. Dermot Ahern, Irish Minister for Justice, introducing his blasphemy law at an Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting, 2009, and referring to comments made about him personally: “They are blasphemous.” Deputy Pat Rabbitte replied: “Given the Minister’s self-image, it could very well be that we are blaspheming,” and Minister Ahern replied: “Deputy Rabbitte says that I am close to the baby Jesus, I am so pure.” So here we have an Irish Justice Minister joking about himself being blasphemed, at a parliamentary Justice Committee discussing his own blasphemy law, that could make his own jokes illegal.<br />
<br />
Finally, as a bonus, Micheal Martin, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, opposing attempts by Islamic States to make defamation of religion a crime at UN level, 2009: “We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.” Just months after Minister Martin made this comment, his colleague Dermot Ahern introduced Ireland’s new blasphemy law."</blockquote>
"Scientology and their Protestors" - Pulse, September 2009
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2009-09-01:2163779:BlogPost:7810
2009-09-01T20:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
<img alt="" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3149250997?profile=original"></img><br />
<br />
It's Saturday the 8th August and I was just buzzed into the Church of Scientology in Dublin. I'm physically shaking after the stories I've been told outside by former scientologist, Peter Griffiths. He tells me that they call all journalists `merchants of chaos', and make up rumours about those that write negative stories about their `Religion'. Today probably wasn't the best day to be wearing my Journalism and New Media class hoody. I could picture naive people being led up these…
<img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3149250997?profile=original" alt=""/><br />
<br />
It's Saturday the 8th August and I was just buzzed into the Church of Scientology in Dublin. I'm physically shaking after the stories I've been told outside by former scientologist, Peter Griffiths. He tells me that they call all journalists `merchants of chaos', and make up rumours about those that write negative stories about their `Religion'. Today probably wasn't the best day to be wearing my Journalism and New Media class hoody. I could picture naive people being led up these stairs by scientologists to complete their free personality test, the first step in joining the church, which is widely regarded as a dangerous cult. Next thing I heard a voice from the top of the stairs boom down at me: "Stop, stay there. I saw you outside with the protestors."<br />
<br />
Earlier that morning I head met with members of Anonymous, a group who make it their mission to warn people of the dangers of Scientology. After seven years as a Scientologist, Peter is now more than aware of the true nature of the group. Sitting on a chair right across the street from the Church, Peter tells me that his brother has been a Scientologist for the past 20 years and, by rule of the Church, is not permitted to communicate with him.<br />
<br />
"When I left staff I got declared a suppressive person, which in Scientology is the worst thing you can be. It means you are anti-scientology, so there must be something wrong with you. The reality is that anyone who leaves the church and speaks out against the Church is called a suppressive person. Psychiatry is called a suppressive group. Medicine is a suppressive group. The French Judicial system will undoubtedly be dubbed suppressive, because they're on trial in France."<br />
<br />
Despite the Church's new opinion on Peter, his brother is still planning to meet him this September. Peter admits that he does try and talk his brother out of the religion, but claims you cannot talk a person out of Scientology.<br />
<br />
"You can never convince them that you're right and they're wrong. You ask them to honestly look at what they have observed in Scientology and do they actually see that anyone has these powers that they are supposed to have, like an improved memory.<br />
<br />
"In fact, one thing you are supposed to do if you take part in the Scientology Dianetics course is stop wearing glasses. If you take a look it the Scientology office, you will see that most of the wear glasses. It's just crazy." At this point, Peter noticed a number of Scientologists staring out the window at us, including the woman who I would later encounter. While I got nervous, because of all the stories I have heard, the protestors waved, many of them with their identities safe and secure behind V for Vendetta masks. "Look at them Scilons staring down at us. That's just a nickname we have for the Scientologists. We also call them Ronbots and Rondroids [after Scientology creator, L. Ron Hubbard]. They probably don't even know we give them nicknames." After the Scientologists got back to their day's activities, Peter told me about his exit from the Church of Scientology.<br />
<br />
"I was an active Scientologist for seven years and then another 13 years went by where I didn't actively participate in any Scientology, but I still thought that they were the good guys.<br />
<br />
"Then a friend of mine came to a protest outside the Church in 2008. I asked him why he was doing that because they are the good guys. He said that they are not the good guys and told me to go online and see for myself. I started to do that and found out that all the things that I thought were true about Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard were all lies."<br />
<br />
The Anonymous group come equipped to every protest with some of the very equipment Scientologists use to lure in naive candidates. One such gadget is the Electrometer, which looks like a device from an early episode of Doctor Who. Peter instructed me to sit down in front of the device and hold onto two grips, which resembles tin cans, which were connected to the Electrometer by crocodile clips. When the machine was turned on, Peter pinched me on my right arm, and the meter jumped forward, then settled down again.<br />
<br />
I was then instructed to think about being pinched, which led to the meter jumping again.<br />
<br />
"Scientologists prey on peoples' emotions. During a stress test the Scientologist asks `what were you thinking of?' and the candidate says `my dead father' and starts crying and they have yet another member to get cash out of."<br />
<br />
At this point, I think it's fair to get the right of reply from the scientologists, after all, once a month Anonymous get all the attention.<br />
<br />
So, I'm buzzed in, shaking and climbing up the steps when a short, angry lady calls down to me: "Stop, stay there. I saw you outside with the protestors." It is very clear I have already gotten on the wrong side of Scientologists. I start to go on the charm offensive, saying I got their side of the story and would like get theirs. She makes a scowling face at me and tells me that the PR man is out and will not be back for the day. She does, however, give me a Dianetics leaflet with the contact number, before telling me to get out. I am later told that this individual is a member of the Sea Org, an international group of leading Scientologists that devote their lives to their religion.<br />
<br />
On my way back, I walk by the protestors and thank them. Peter shakes my hand and says: "Scientology is on its way out. People are realising it's a very dangerous cult, and it's only a matter of time before the whole thing falls apart." For more information on Anonymous visit: <a href="http://www.anoneire.ning.com">www.anoneire.ning.com</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://issuu.com/ulsu/docs/pulsesept" target="_blank">http://issuu.com/ulsu/docs/pulsesept</a>
"Scientology faces allegations of abuse and covering up deaths in Australia" - The Irish Times, November 19th, 2009
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2009-11-19:2163779:BlogPost:7605
2009-11-19T08:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
THE CHURCH of Scientology in Australia was last night defending itself from a scathing attack by a politician using parliamentary privilege.<br />
<br />
In a senate speech late on Tuesday, independent south Australia senator Nick Xenophon said: “Scientology is not a religious organisation. It is a criminal organisation that hides behind its so-called religious beliefs.”<br />
<br />
Mr Xenophon questioned Scientology’s tax exemption status and called for it to be investigated by the police and parliament.<br />
<br />
The…
THE CHURCH of Scientology in Australia was last night defending itself from a scathing attack by a politician using parliamentary privilege.<br />
<br />
In a senate speech late on Tuesday, independent south Australia senator Nick Xenophon said: “Scientology is not a religious organisation. It is a criminal organisation that hides behind its so-called religious beliefs.”<br />
<br />
Mr Xenophon questioned Scientology’s tax exemption status and called for it to be investigated by the police and parliament.<br />
<br />
The senator tabled letters he received from former Scientology members detailing claims of abuse, false imprisonment, forced abortion, embezzlement and the covering up of children’s deaths.<br />
<br />
“One of the saddest correspondences I have received – and they are all sad – is from Paul Schofield,” said Mr Xenophon.<br />
<br />
Mr Schofield alleges the cover-up of child abuse by Scientology and admitted being part of a campaign to cover up the facts surrounding the deaths of two of his daughters. “Lauren, who was 14 months old, was being babysat at the organisation’s building in Sydney when she was allowed to wander the stairs by herself and fall. She died in hospital two days later,” said Mr Xenophon.<br />
<br />
Mr Schofield said he felt pressured by Scientology executives not to request an inquiry, and was told if he sought compensation he and his wife would be ineligible for any church services. “His second daughter, Kirsty, who was 2½, died after ingesting potassium chloride – a substance used as part of a so-called ‘purification programme’ run by the organisation,” said Mr Xenophon.<br />
<br />
Mr Schofield says he perjured himself to the police in the inquest to protect the church.<br />
<br />
A letter from former Scientologist Aaron Saxton said he was involved in coercing female followers to have abortions.<br />
<br />
He said this was part of a policy designed to keep followers loyal and to allow them to continue working for the organisation.<br />
<br />
The Church of Scientology said Mr Xenophon’s allegations were an abuse of parliamentary privilege.<br />
<br />
“If these people had key issues, then how come they haven’t contacted the church officially? . . . I think it’s a bit disingenuous that someone stands up in parliament, where they can say whatever they want,” said Scientology spokeswoman Virginia Stewart.<br />
<br />
Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd said Mr Xenophon’s speech contained “grave allegations”.<br />
<br />
“I share some of those concerns but let us proceed carefully and look carefully at the material which he has provided before we make a decision on further parliamentary action,” he said.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/1119/1224259105905.html" target="_blank">http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/1119/1224259105905.html</a>
Aussie Senator tells it like it is
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2009-11-17:2163779:BlogPost:7604
2009-11-17T16:51:36.000Z
themadhair
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/MarkAnthonyBehan
The appropriately named Nick Xenophon tells the Australian Parliament about Scientology:<br />
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The appropriately named Nick Xenophon tells the Australian Parliament about Scientology:<br />
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"Scientology chiefs make €270,000 from Irish wing" - Irish Independent, November 14th 2009
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2009-11-14:2163779:BlogPost:7602
2009-11-14T08:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
THE Irish wing of the controversial Church of Scientology is making annual profits of over €270,000 but its director last night insisted all the money was going to pay off the company's "substantial debts".<br />
<br />
A favourite with celebrities such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, the local Scientology spin-off has been the subject of numerous protests at its Middle Abbey Street base in Dublin, with a Fine Gael TD branding the movement a "crackpot cult".<br />
<br />
New financial filings show the Irish branch's…
THE Irish wing of the controversial Church of Scientology is making annual profits of over €270,000 but its director last night insisted all the money was going to pay off the company's "substantial debts".<br />
<br />
A favourite with celebrities such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, the local Scientology spin-off has been the subject of numerous protests at its Middle Abbey Street base in Dublin, with a Fine Gael TD branding the movement a "crackpot cult".<br />
<br />
New financial filings show the Irish branch's income was €484,000 over the 12 months up to April 2008, despite having less than 400 members in Ireland at the time. Their contributions yielded profits of €271,804 for the year.<br />
<br />
Counselling<br />
<br />
"The money would come from selling scriptures, running courses, spiritual counselling and donations," Gerard Ryan, director of the Irish organisation, said last night.<br />
<br />
"I'm forever saying to those who criticise us, look at the accounts and you can see any money we make we spend.<br />
<br />
"The profit for 2008 was set against the company's substantial debts."<br />
<br />
The new filings show the Irish Scientologists had debts of over €1m before the 2008 financial year. The shortfall was funded by "loans from members of the Church of Scientology worldwide", the accounts added.<br />
<br />
The Irish Scientologists have previously spoken about opening offices outside of Dublin and Mr Ryan said that was "certainly" still the plan.<br />
<br />
"I'd expect to have another office open next year," he added. The church had about 400 members in 2008. Mr Ryan said that number has since grown to "more than 500".<br />
<br />
Scientology Ireland has 13 "employees" who were paid over €57,000 between them. "A lot of those would be part-time and we have a lot of volunteers," said Mr Ryan.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.independent.ie/national-news/scientology-chiefs-make-8364270000-from-irish-wing-1943489.html" target="_blank">http://www.independent.ie/national-news/scientology-chiefs-make-8364270000-from-irish-wing-1943489.html</a>
"Church of Scientology fined €600,000" - The Irish Times, October 27th 2009
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2009-10-27:2163779:BlogPost:7461
2009-10-27T12:30:00.000Z
themadhair
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/MarkAnthonyBehan
A Paris court has fined the French branch of the Church of Scientology a total of €600,000 after finding it guilty of fraud but allowed the group to continue operating in France.<br />
<br />
When the hearing opened, there were expectations that the court could order the group to be banned in France but legislation passed in parliament just before the start of the trial in May, ruled that option out.<br />
<br />
The legislation has since been changed back to allow the dissolution of an organisation found guilty of…
A Paris court has fined the French branch of the Church of Scientology a total of €600,000 after finding it guilty of fraud but allowed the group to continue operating in France.<br />
<br />
When the hearing opened, there were expectations that the court could order the group to be banned in France but legislation passed in parliament just before the start of the trial in May, ruled that option out.<br />
<br />
The legislation has since been changed back to allow the dissolution of an organisation found guilty of fraud but because of the timing of the case, there was no question of forcing the Church of Scientology to be wound up.<br />
<br />
"It is very regrettable that the law quietly changed before the trial," Georges Fenech, head of the Inter-ministerial Unit to Monitor and Fight Cults, told television station France 24.<br />
<br />
"The system has now been put in place by parliament and it is certain that in the future, if new offences are committed, a ban could eventually be pronounced," he said.<br />
<br />
The court handed down suspended prison sentences ranging from 10 months to two years and fines of €5,000 to €30,000 to four leaders of the group in France.<br />
<br />
"This is an important and historic decision because it is the first time that Scientology has been found guilty of involvement in organised fraud," Olivier Morice, one of the lawyers for the civil parties to the case told reporters.<br />
<br />
The case was brought by two former members who said they were cajoled into spending €21,000 and €49,500 on personality tests, vitamin cures, sauna sessions and "purification packs".<br />
<br />
Scientology, which is officially considered a sect in France, denies fraud and is expected to appeal.<br />
<br />
Registered as a religion in the United States, with celebrity members such as actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta, Scientology enjoys no such legal protection in France, where it has faced accusations of being a money-making cult.<br />
<br />
The trial, which began on May 25th, centres on complaints made in the late 1990s.<br />
<br />
The prosecutor had recommended that the Paris court dissolve the church's French arm.<br />
<br />
Scientology has faced numerous setbacks in France, with members convicted of fraud in Lyon in 1997 and Marseille in 1999. In 2002, a court fined it for violating privacy laws and said it could be dissolved if involved in similar cases.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/1027/breaking36.htm" target="_blank">http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/1027/breaking36.htm</a>
ABC Nightline double bill
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2009-10-24:2163779:BlogPost:7427
2009-10-24T20:20:28.000Z
themadhair
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/MarkAnthonyBehan
The highlight is Martin Bashir taking no crap from Tommy Davis at the end of part 3 of the October 24th piece.<br />
<br />
October 23rd:<br />
…<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3yYk3yIZ7fI&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="false"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><embed allowscriptaccess="never" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3yYk3yIZ7fI&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" wmode="opaque"></embed> <param name="wmode" value="opaque"></param></object>
<p></p>
<p></p>
The highlight is Martin Bashir taking no crap from Tommy Davis at the end of part 3 of the October 24th piece.<br />
<br />
October 23rd:<br />
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3yYk3yIZ7fI&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3yYk3yIZ7fI&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
<p></p>
<p><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QSn3HmoCG5s&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QSn3HmoCG5s&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>
</p>
<p><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/N7d8-Oksh0E&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/N7d8-Oksh0E&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>
<br />
October 24th:<br />
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/V4jBz00VuzE&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/V4jBz00VuzE&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
</p>
<p><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LHpFi_xH0Is&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LHpFi_xH0Is&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
</p>
<p><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Hkh2TPhoZgo&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Hkh2TPhoZgo&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
</p>
<p><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/U11jvVP_yDE&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/U11jvVP_yDE&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
</p>
<p><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2hw_4NSX8x4&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2hw_4NSX8x4&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
</p>
"Irish firm wins in row with Scientology" - Business World, October 9th 2009
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2009-10-09:2163779:BlogPost:7341
2009-10-09T10:30:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
A leading Irish recruitment agency has won a highly unusual tussle with the quasi-religious cult, the Scientologists.<br />
<br />
Prosperity Recruitment had applied to register the trade mark of its own name: "Prosperity".<br />
<br />
However, objections arose as the Church of Scientology has a similar trade mark relating to the word "Prosperity".<br />
<br />
The objection said that Prosperity Recruitment's activities were too closely described to the Scientologists!<br />
<br />
After much difficulty, Dublin-based Prosperity was…
A leading Irish recruitment agency has won a highly unusual tussle with the quasi-religious cult, the Scientologists.<br />
<br />
Prosperity Recruitment had applied to register the trade mark of its own name: "Prosperity".<br />
<br />
However, objections arose as the Church of Scientology has a similar trade mark relating to the word "Prosperity".<br />
<br />
The objection said that Prosperity Recruitment's activities were too closely described to the Scientologists!<br />
<br />
After much difficulty, Dublin-based Prosperity was successfully able to overcome these issues with the trade mark office and its trade mark will now be officially registered and protected.<br />
<br />
Prosperity Director, Gary Mullan said: "It is amusing that an Irish recruitment company's services could be considered to be a close match to the goods and "services" described by the Scientologists".<br />
<br />
He went on to say that: "Prosperity Recruitment aims to promote a different kind of Happiness - one that is all the more in demand in this current economic climate".<br />
<br />
Earlier this year, The Church of Scientology went on trial in Paris accused of organised fraud.<br />
<br />
Both the French and German States regard Scientology as a cult, not a religion.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.businessworld.ie/livenews.htm?a=2491038" target="_blank">http://www.businessworld.ie/livenews.htm?a=2491038</a>
Cork protesters warn of Scientology scam
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2009-09-18:2163779:BlogPost:7302
2009-09-18T11:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
Cork students have been urged to be cautious if approached by members of religious organisations while traveling abroad. Members of the anti-Scientology group Anonireland.org gathered outside City Hall earlier this week to protest the inclusion of a 'Dianetics and Scientology' stand at the Mind Body Spirit Festival held at the venue. While one protester refused to remove his mask for fear of being "destroyed" by members of the Church of Scientology, ex-Scientologist and founder of Anon-Ireland…
Cork students have been urged to be cautious if approached by members of religious organisations while traveling abroad. Members of the anti-Scientology group Anonireland.org gathered outside City Hall earlier this week to protest the inclusion of a 'Dianetics and Scientology' stand at the Mind Body Spirit Festival held at the venue. While one protester refused to remove his mask for fear of being "destroyed" by members of the Church of Scientology, ex-Scientologist and founder of Anon-Ireland Peter Griffiths spoke out to warn Cork people that Scientology was, in his opinion, "a fraud and a scam".<br />
<br />
Passer-by Rosemary O'Farrell, stopped to show her support for the protesters outside City Hall. The Corkwoman shared her experiences of the Church, made famous by celebrities such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta. She told the Cork News, "Many years ago some friends of mine had a family member who was brainwashed by a group of Scientologists in Australia. The man, originally from Limerick, disappeared for a time and when his family finally found him, they had to take him to be 'deprogrammed'. He was later kidnapped by this group who were intent on controlling him. I think it's very important that parents warn their children about these kinds of groups before they travel abroad or they could find themselves in the same situation." Ms. O'Farrell continued, "In my experience, they prey on people who might be weak or out of their element, on the street or in soup kitchens and homeless shelters."<br />
<br />
Anon Ireland takes particular exception to a policy entitled Fair Game, written by Scientology’s founder, science-fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. The policy states that critics of the organisation "May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.”<br />
<br />
The group also campaigns against the practice of Disconnection, the severance of all ties between a Scientologist and a friend, colleague, or family member deemed to be antagonistic towards Scientology, claiming it has split up families.<br />
<br />
<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3149251008?profile=original"/></p>
<br />
Caption:<br />
Ex-Scientologist and founder of Anon-Ireland Peter Griffiths, an anonymous protester and Cork supporter Rosemary O'Farrell, pictured outside City Hall, Cork. Picture: The Cork News<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.thecorknews.ie/?q=content/cork-protesters-warn-scientology-scam" target="_blank">http://www.thecorknews.ie/?q=content/cork-protesters-warn-scientology-scam</a>
Sunday World 12th July, 2009
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2009-07-12:2163779:BlogPost:6302
2009-07-12T23:00:00.000Z
themadhair
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/MarkAnthonyBehan
<p style="text-align: left;"><img alt="" height="690" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3149250983?profile=original" width="1024"></img></p>
<br />
BULLS**T<br />
<br />
Cult church gets the boot after setting up stall at farmers' fair<br />
<br />
THE wacky Church of Scientology have been attempting to dupe farmers<br />
into parting with their hard-earned cash after setting up a stall at a<br />
small country show.<br />
<br />
Organisers of the Balieboro Agricultural Show were stunned when they<br />
realised that a team from 'Dianetics' who hired a spot at their annual<br />
event were in fact members of Tom Cruise's weird cult. Philip Fyfes,<br />
who is…
<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3149250983?profile=original" alt="" width="1024" height="690"/></p>
<br />
BULLS**T<br />
<br />
Cult church gets the boot after setting up stall at farmers' fair<br />
<br />
THE wacky Church of Scientology have been attempting to dupe farmers<br />
into parting with their hard-earned cash after setting up a stall at a<br />
small country show.<br />
<br />
Organisers of the Balieboro Agricultural Show were stunned when they<br />
realised that a team from 'Dianetics' who hired a spot at their annual<br />
event were in fact members of Tom Cruise's weird cult. Philip Fyfes,<br />
who is in charge of trade stands at the Co Cavan show, said he had no<br />
idea that the 'company' who said they offered free stress tests and<br />
sold self-help books were actually Scientologists.<br />
<br />
More than 1,000 people attended the show last Sunday and many availed<br />
of the free tests before being offered books written by Church founder<br />
L Ron Hubbard.<br />
Lured<br />
<br />
One woman who was lured to the stall said she was saved by her dog<br />
after the animal became impatient while she was quizzed about her work<br />
and relationships. "I had my dog with me and he was on a lead and got<br />
bored and started pulling me away. On the stall they were selling DVDs<br />
and books and they tried to sell me Dianetics books as I left."<br />
<br />
Dianetics is the system of beliefs practiced by Scientologists and is<br />
a term mainly used by the Church to market itself when trying to bring<br />
in new recruits.<br />
<br />
John Duignan who spent 22 years as a high ranking member of the cult<br />
'church' warned organisers of festivals across the country: "Be on the<br />
lookout for the Church because they will never identify themselves for<br />
who they are. They use names like Dianetics and other names like<br />
Narcanon and Criminon. "The Church of Scientology is a cult and it is<br />
a dangerous organisation."<br />
<br />
Scientologists have been racking their brains about how to beat the<br />
recession in Ireland and save their ailing mission by luring new<br />
clients with promises of financial success and career improvements.<br />
Promise<br />
<br />
It is offering courses in finances, anxiety and even child rearing at<br />
knock down prices in the hope of starting new recruits on the so<br />
called 'Bridge to Total Freedom'. "The Church of Scientology wants<br />
nothing more than your money. It will appear to be a place where you<br />
can find the answers to your problems but it is not," says Duignan.<br />
<br />
"I once thought it had the answers and I was lured in. But it ended up<br />
nearly destroying my life. Now I am starting again and I hope my<br />
experience will keep others away."
Sunday World 5th July 2009
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2009-07-06:2163779:BlogPost:6241
2009-07-06T11:51:13.000Z
themadhair
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/MarkAnthonyBehan
<p style="text-align:left"><img src="http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m336/themadhair/sundayworld05072009.jpg"/></p>
<p style="text-align:left"><img src="http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m336/themadhair/sundayworld05072009.jpg"/></p>
My Life in Scientology (Evening Herald, March 5th 2009)
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2009-03-05:2163779:BlogPost:5201
2009-03-05T19:00:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
John Duignan likes to joke about his experiences. "I did 22 years. You'd be out of jail quicker for murder." Duignan was a member of the Church of Scientology.<br />
<br />
Having joined the group in 1985, he moved up the ranks until he was promoted to membership of the Sea Organisation, the management arm. Duignan was to spend the next two decades in Scientology's grip before finally leaving in 2007. He has written a book, The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology,…
John Duignan likes to joke about his experiences. "I did 22 years. You'd be out of jail quicker for murder." Duignan was a member of the Church of Scientology.<br />
<br />
Having joined the group in 1985, he moved up the ranks until he was promoted to membership of the Sea Organisation, the management arm. Duignan was to spend the next two decades in Scientology's grip before finally leaving in 2007. He has written a book, The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology, which recounts his experiences.<br />
<br />
In 1972, Duignan's father committed suicide, leaving his Irish wife with six young children. Less than two years later, she was also dead, having suffered an asthma attack at their home in Scotland. Duignan was sent to live with relatives in Cork. Feeling dislocated, he joined a touring Christianity group before going to Germany in search of work. It was in Stuttgart that he was introduced to Scientology. "I was stopped in the street by an attractive woman and asked if I wanted to do a test. Within two weeks, I was sure L Ron Hubbard [Scientology founder] was right about everything."<br />
<br />
Duignan dedicated himself to Scientology. Paid around €20 a week, he worked from 9am to 11pm trying to recruit new members as well as raising money for the organisation. "Scientology is not a church -- it's a money-making institution. Money is all it cares about."<br />
<br />
It was this realisation and his gradual disconnection from Hubbard's theories which proved to be the catalyst for his decision to leave. He lay low in Birmingham before returning to Cork, where he went into hiding. "There is a precedent for Scientology members to be indoctrinated into the teachings again. I was vulnerable at the time of my escape, so it was essential that I didn't have any contact with them."<br />
<br />
Although Duignan managed to remain outside the influence of Scientology, he admits his path back hasn't been easy. "There was a huge amount of anger. I fell into a deep depression and felt like killing myself at one stage. It was only after I learned to stop directing that anger at myself that I was able to make peace. I'm studying at university now, have a partner and I'm happy."<br />
<br />
The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology (Merlin, €12.99)
Anonymous celebrates one year of protests
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2009-02-09:2163779:BlogPost:4721
2009-02-09T17:30:00.000Z
someone
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/Anonymous
Dublin, Ireland – The internet-based collective known as Anonymous will mark their one year anniversary of peaceful protests against the Church of Scientology this February with global protests spanning several weekends.<br />
<br />
Anonymous has raised global public awareness of the Church of Scientology's scams and scandals over the last twelve months.<br />
<br />
Highlights from the last twelve months include:<br />
<br />
1) Court rejects Clearwater injunction in early March…
Dublin, Ireland – The internet-based collective known as Anonymous will mark their one year anniversary of peaceful protests against the Church of Scientology this February with global protests spanning several weekends.<br />
<br />
Anonymous has raised global public awareness of the Church of Scientology's scams and scandals over the last twelve months.<br />
<br />
Highlights from the last twelve months include:<br />
<br />
1) Court rejects Clearwater injunction in early March <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/civil/article416511.ece">[1]</a>.<br />
The Scientology organisation attempted to fabricate enough threats against themselves to convince a court in Clearwater, Florida (the Scientology "Mecca") to grant an injunction against peaceful Anonymous protests<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6pdGhHvwu8">[2]</a>.<br />
<br />
2) Scientology under investigation worldwide.<br />
*Raided by the Belgian authorities <a href="http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Authorities_in_Belgium_raid_Church_of_Scientology">[3]</a>.<br />
*Ordered to stand trial for fraud in France <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/09/france.religion">[4]</a>.<br />
*In Kazakhstan, authorities are seeking to have the local chapter removed as the Church of Scientology "runs counter to principles of national security of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as it is aimed at undermining Kazakh nation's health through inflicting harm on people's psychic and physical health" <a href="http://www.interfax.com/3/468595/news.aspx">[5]</a>.<br />
<br />
3) Scientology front groups exposed.<br />
Leaked documents <a href="http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Talk:The_Corporations_of_Scientology">[6]</a> have exposed the aims and intentions of the many Scientology front groups. These documents prove that despite the groups' insisting that the methods are secular, they are in fact founded upon the Scientology preudo-religious teachings. These front groups include: Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR, anti-psychiatry wing of Scientology) <a href="http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2008/06/27/story66081.asp">[7]</a>; Narconon (drug rehab program based on Scientology, not related to Narcotics Anonymous) <a href="http://anoneire.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cult-watchdog-says-scientology">[8]</a>; Study Technology (Hubbard’s learning methodologies promoted by Applied Scholastics and other such groups) <a href="http://www.studytech.org/study_tech.php">[9]</a>; World Institute of Scientology Enterprises (WISE) <a href="http://realitybasedcommunity.net/archive/2008/12/former_cio_sues.php">[10]</a> and Second Chance/Criminon <a href="http://kob.com/article/stories/S761360.shtml?cat=500">[11]</a> among others.<br />
<br />
4) German government extend official invitation to Anonymous.<br />
German authorities organised a conference last September in Hamburg entitled “What is Scientology?” and extended an official invitation to Anonymous to attend. Scientology representative Tommy Davis was denied access on the grounds that “If you discuss the dangers of illegal drugs, you do not invite the drug dealer to speak on stage” <a href="http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/09/06/18533664.php">[12]</a>. Speeches given at this conference are available online <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/AboutScientology">[13]</a>.<br />
<br />
This year has seen much headway in the fight against the Scientology enterprise. Many of their internal documents and policies have been leaked <a href="http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Scientology">[14]</a>, many media organisations have lost their fear of reporting on Scientology <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0WetfWy3hE">[15]</a>, critical documentaries have achieved worldwide circulation <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dv4u3fVQrU">[16]</a>, and lawsuits have been filed that will further expose the enterprise <a href="http://realitybasedcommunity.net/archive/2009/01/marc_headley_v_1.php">[17]</a>.<br />
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The global release of John Duignan’s book ‘The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology’ <a href="http://www.eason.ie/items/9781903582848">[18]</a>, which is still blocked from sale in the UK due to Scientology's efforts <a href="http://anoneire.ning.com/profiles/blogs/church-of-scientology-prevents">[19]</a>, has served to raise awareness about Scientology in the UK, as well as any country whose citizens heard about this censorship <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRcRkpaA_7k">[20]</a>.<br />
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What a difference a year makes. Scientology operatives still continue to paint Anonymous in a negative light as a means of distracting attention from Scientology operations and attempting to discredit those who bring truth to the issues at hand. It just isn’t working.<br />
<br />
It has been some twelve months – time to finish what was started.<br />
<br />
About Anonymous:<br />
Anonymous is a grassroots collective comprised of ordinary people from all walks of life, from former Scientologists and long-time cult activists, to college students and corporate professionals, all united in recognition of the malign nature of the 'Church' of Scientology, the danger it poses to society, and the necessity of action.<br />
<br />
We are Anonymous.<br />
We are legion.<br />
We do not forgive,<br />
We do not forget.<br />
Expect us.<br />
<br />
For more information visit:<br />
http://www.whyweprotest.net<br />
http://forums.whyweprotest.net<br />
http://library.endthecult.com<br />
http://anonstillalive.com<br />
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References:<br />
[1] Media coverage of the court’s decision:<br />
<a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/civil/article416511.ece">http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/civil/article416511.ece</a><br />
<br />
[2] Video analysis showing that Scientology manufactured the bomb threat:<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6pdGhHvwu8">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6pdGhHvwu8</a><br />
<br />
[3] Media coverage of the Belgian authorities raid:<br />
<a href="http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Authorities_in_Belgium_raid_Church_of_Scientology">http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Authorities_in_Belgium_raid_Church_of_Scientology</a><br />
<br />
[4] Media coverage of the France trial:<br />
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/09/france.religion">http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/09/france.religion</a><br />
<br />
[5] Media coverage of the Kazakhstan case:<br />
<a href="http://www.interfax.com/3/468595/news.aspx">http://www.interfax.com/3/468595/news.aspx</a><br />
<br />
[6] Leaked Scientology document exposing their front groups:<br />
<a href="http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Talk:The_Corporations_of_Scientology">http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Talk:The_Corporations_of_Scientology</a><br />
<br />
[7] Media coverage of the build up to the CCHR event held June 2008:<br />
<a href="http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2008/06/27/story66081.asp">http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2008/06/27/story66081.asp</a><br />
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[8] Media coverage exposing plans to use Narconon to infiltrate Irish schools:<br />
<a href="http://anoneire.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cult-watchdog-says-scientology">http://anoneire.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cult-watchdog-says-scientology</a><br />
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[9] Extensive analysis exposing Study Technology as poorly veiled Scientology:<br />
http://www.studytech.org/study_tech.php<br />
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[10] WISE company Diskeeper is being sued for forcing Scientology teachings upon its employees:<br />
<a href="http://realitybasedcommunity.net/archive/2008/12/former_cio_sues.php">http://realitybasedcommunity.net/archive/2008/12/former_cio_sues.php</a><br />
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[11] Second chance violating there lease in New Mexico and leaving a substantial bill after they fled:<br />
<a href="http://kob.com/article/stories/S761360.shtml?cat=500">http://kob.com/article/stories/S761360.shtml?cat=500</a><br />
<br />
[12] Coverage of the conference:<br />
<a href="http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/09/06/18533664.php">http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/09/06/18533664.php</a><br />
<br />
[13] The speeches made at the Hamburg conference:<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/AboutScientology">http://www.youtube.com/user/AboutScientology</a><br />
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[14] Leaked Scientology documents:<br />
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Scientology<br />
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[15] Australian news broadcasts portions of the infamous OT3 lecture in Hubbard’s own voice for the first time. OT3 is a level in Scientology which costs its members thousands of euro to learn. It’s basic teachings is that all life’s anxieties and worries are caused by the infestation of dead alien souls:<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0WetfWy3hE">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0WetfWy3hE</a><br />
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[16] A selection of documentaries about Scientology from various countries:<br />
Spain - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3cNdLK3tqs">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3cNdLK3tqs</a><br />
Ireland - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypDb2e4vdy4">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypDb2e4vdy4</a><br />
Germany - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl8gVtKzD5Q">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl8gVtKzD5Q</a><br />
Israel - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsqMqtpU44o">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsqMqtpU44o</a><br />
England - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dv4u3fVQrU">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dv4u3fVQrU</a><br />
Denmark - <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6722222657154769083">http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6722222657154769083</a><br />
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[17] Analysis of the Headley’s cases against the Scientology enterprise:<br />
<a href="http://realitybasedcommunity.net/archive/2009/01/marc_headley_v_1.php">http://realitybasedcommunity.net/archive/2009/01/marc_headley_v_1.php</a><br />
<a href="http://realitybasedcommunity.net/archive/2009/01/claire_headley.php">http://realitybasedcommunity.net/archive/2009/01/claire_headley.php</a><br />
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[18] Buy ‘The Complex’ here:<br />
<a href="http://www.eason.ie/items/9781903582848">http://www.eason.ie/items/9781903582848</a><br />
<br />
[19] Scientology prevents UK-based booksellers from stocking ‘The Complex’:<br />
<a href="http://anoneire.ning.com/profiles/blogs/church-of-scientology-prevents">http://anoneire.ning.com/profiles/blogs/church-of-scientology-prevents</a><br />
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[20] Recent interview of John Duignan on the Gerry Ryan show:<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRcRkpaA_7k">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRcRkpaA_7k</a>
Former Scientologist in Winnipeg, Canada extending congratulations
tag:anoneire.ning.com,2009-01-18:2163779:BlogPost:4322
2009-01-18T20:15:31.000Z
altruistichedonist
http://anoneire.ning.com/profile/altruistichedonist
Just found your site. It's excellent ! As a former scientologist of Irish descent, I am very pleased that you're getting rid of Scientology in Dublin. I have a niece from Poland permanently living in Dublin with her husband and daughter and I certainly don't want to have to come to Dublin to pull them out of Scientology. I would if I had to ! Someday I'll return to Ireland, but that'll be for the fun of retirement. And maybe lay a fart at the grave of Scientology. LOL, from Winnipeg
Just found your site. It's excellent ! As a former scientologist of Irish descent, I am very pleased that you're getting rid of Scientology in Dublin. I have a niece from Poland permanently living in Dublin with her husband and daughter and I certainly don't want to have to come to Dublin to pull them out of Scientology. I would if I had to ! Someday I'll return to Ireland, but that'll be for the fun of retirement. And maybe lay a fart at the grave of Scientology. LOL, from Winnipeg